LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 

'  CALIFORNIA      ' 

SAN  DlEl 

y 


THE  HIDDEN  POWER 

And  Other  Papers  Upon  Mental  Science 


BOOKS  by  JUDGE  TROWARD 

BIBLE  MYSTERY  AND  BIBLE 

MEANING 
THE  CREATIVE  PROCESS  IN 

THE  INDIVIDUAL 
THE  DORE  LECTURES 
THE  EDINBURGH  LECTURES 
THE  LAW  AND  THE  WORD 
THE  HIDDEN  POWER 


Thomas  Troward 


THE 

HIDDEN   POWER 

And  Other  Papers  Upon  Mental  Science 
T.  TROWARD 

Late  Divisional  Judges-Punjab.    Honorary  Member  of  tkt 
Medico-Legal   Society    of  New    York.    First    Vice- 
President  International  New  Thought  Alliance 


NEW  YORK 
ROBERT  M.  McBRIDE  &  COMPANY 

1925 


Copyright,  1921,  by 
S.  A.  TROWARD 
All  rights  reserved 


Second  Printing 
Third  Printing 


Printed      in       the 
United     States     of     America 


Published,         1921 


PUBLISHER'S  NOTE 

The  material  comprised  in  this  volume  has  been 
selected  from  unpublished  manuscripts  and  magazine 
articles  by  Judge  Troward,  and  "The  Hidden  Power" 
is,  it  is  believed,  the  last  book  which  will  be  published 
under  his  name.  Only  an  insignificant  portion  of  his 
work  has  been  deemed  unworthy  of  permanent  pres- 
ervation. Whenever  possible,  dates  have  been  affixed 
to  these  papers.  Those  published  in  1902  appeared 
originally  in  "EXPRESSION:  A  Journal  of  Mind 
and  Thought,"  in  London,  and  to  some  of  these  have 
been  added  notes  made  later  by  the  author. 

The  Publishers  wish  to  acknowledge  their  indebted- 
ness to  Mr.  Daniel  M.  Murphy  of  New  York  for  his 
services  in  the  selection  and  arrangement  of  the 
material. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PACK 

I    THE  HIDDEN  POWER 1 

II    THE  PERVERSION  OF  TRUTH 42 

III  THE  "I  AM" 59 

IV  AFFIRMATIVE  POWER 63 

V    SUBMISSION 67 

VI    COMPLETENESS 74 

VII    THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  GUIDANCE 81 

VIII    DESIRE  AS  THE  MOTIVE  POWER 85 

IX    TOUCHING  LIGHTLY 92 

X    PRESENT  TRUTH 96 

XI    YOURSELF 99 

XII    RELIGIOUS  OPINIONS 105 

XIII  A  LESSON  FROM  BROWNING 113 

XIV  THE  SPIRIT  OF  OPULENCE 118 

XV    BEAUTY 123 

XVI    SEPARATION  AND  UNITY 129 

XVII      EXTERNALISATION 141 

XVIII    ENTERING  INTO  THE  SPIRIT  OF  IT      .....  146 
XIX    THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  NEW  THOUGHT 

I.  THE  SON 153 

II.  THE  GREAT  AFFIRMATION 166 

III.  THE  FATHER 178 

IV.  CONCLUSION        185 

XX    JACHIN  AND  BOAZ .192 

XXI    HEPHZIBAH 197 

XXII    MIND  AND  HAND 204 

XXIII  THE  CENTRAL  CONTROL 209 

XXIV  WHAT  is  HIGHER  THOUGHT 213 

XXV    FRAGMENTS    ,  215 


THE  HIDDEN  POWER 
AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 


THE  HIDDEN  POWER 

To  realise  fully  how  much  of  our  present  daily  life 
consists  in  symbols  is  to  find  the  answer  to  the  old,  old 
question,  What  is  Truth?  and  in  the  degree  in  which 
we  begin  to  recognise  this  we  begin  to  approach  Truth. 
The  realisation  of  Truth  consists  in  the  ability  to  trans- 
late symbols,  whether  natural  or  conventional,  into 
their  equivalents;  and  the  root  of  all  the  errors  of  man- 
kind consists  in  the  inability  to  do  this,  and  in  main- 
taining that  the  symbol  has  nothing  behind  it.  The 
great  duty  incumbent  on  all  who  have  attained  to  this 
knowledge  is  to  impress  upon  their  fellow  men  that 
there  is  an  inner  side  to  things,  and  that  until  this  inner 
side  is  known,  the  things  themselves  are  not  known. 

There  is  an  inner  and  an  outer  side  to  everything; 
and  the  quality  of  the  superficial  mind  which  causes  it 
to  fail  in  the  attainment  of  Truth  is  its  willingness  to 
rest  content  with  the  outside  only.  So  long  as  this  is 
the  case  it  is  impossible  for  a  man  to  grasp  the  import 

I 


2  The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

of  his  own  relation  to  the  universal,  and  it  is  this  rela- 
tion which  constitutes  all  that  is  signified  by  the  word 
"Truth."  So  long  as  a  man  fixes  his  attention  only 
on  the  superficial  it  is  impossible  for  him  to  make  any 
progress  in  knowledge.  He  is  denying  that  principle 
of  "Growth"  which  is  the  root  of  all  life,  whether 
spiritual  intellectual,  or  material,  for  he  does  not 
stop  to  reflect  that  all  which  he  sees  as  the  outer  side 
of  things  can  result  only  from  some  germinal  prin- 
ciple hidden  deep  in  the  centre  of  their  being. 

Expansion  from  the  centre  by  growth  according  to 
a  necessary  order  of  sequence,  this  is  the  Law  of  Life 
of  which  the  whole  universe  is  the  outcome,  alike  in 
the  one  great  solidarity  of  cosmic  being,  as  in  the 
separate  individualities  of  its  minutest  organisms. 
This  great  principle  is  the  key  to  the  whole  riddle 
of  Life,  upon  whatever  plane  we  contemplate  it;  and 
without  this  key  the  door  from  the  outer  to  the  inner 
side  of  things  can  never  be  opened.  It  is  therefore 
the  duty  of  all  to  whom  this  door  has,  at  least  in  some 
measure,  been  opened,  to  endeavour  to  acquaint  others 
with  the  fact  that  there  is  an  inner  side  to  things,  and 
that  life  becomes  truer  and  fuller  in  proportion  as  we 
penetrate  to  it  and  make  our  estimates  of  all  things 
according  to  what  becomes  visible  from  this  interior 
point  of  view. 

In  the  widest  sense  everything  is  a  symbol  of  that 
which  constitutes  its  inner  being,  and  all  Nature  is  a 
gallery  of  arcana  revealing  great  truths  to  those  who 


The  Hidden  Power  3 

can  decipher  them.  But  there  is  a  more  precise  sense 
in  which  our  current  life  is  based  upon  symbols  in 
regard  to  the  most  important  subjects  that  can  occupy 
our  thoughts :  the  symbols  by  which  we  strive  to  rep- 
resent the  nature  and  being  of  God,  and  the  manner  in 
which  the  life  of  man  is  related  to  the  Divine  life. 
The  whole  character  of  a  man's  life  results  from  what 
he  really  believes  on  this  subject :  not  his  formal  state- 
ment of  belief  in  a  particular  creed,  but  what  he  realises 
as  the  stage  which  his  mind  has  actually  attained  in 
regard  to  it. 

Has  a  man's  mind  only  reached  the  point  at  which 
he  thinks  it  is  impossible  to  know  anything  about  God, 
or  to  make  any  use  of  the  knowledge  if  he  had  it? 
Then  his  whole  interior  world  is  in  the  condition  of 
confusion,  which  must  necessarily  exist  where  no 
spirit  of  order  has  yet  begun  to  move  upon  the  chaos, 
in  which  are,  indeed,  the  elements  of  being,  but  all 
disordered  and  neutralising  one  another.  Has  he  ad- 
vanced a  step  further,  and  realised  that  there  is  a  ruling 
and  an  ordering  power,  but  beyond  this  is  ignorant  of 
its  nature?  Then  the  unknown  stands  to  him  for  the 
terrific,  and,  amid  a  tumult  of  fears  and  distresses 
that  deprive  him  of  all  strength  to  advance,  he  spends 
his  life  in  the  endeavour  to  propitiate  this  power  as 
something  naturally  adverse  to  him,  instead  of  know- 
ing that  it  is  the  very  centre  of  his  own  life  and  being. 

And  so  on  through  every  degree,  from  the  lowest 
depths  of  ignorance  to  the  greatest  heights  of  intelli- 


4  The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

gence,  a  man's  life  must  always  be  the  exact  reflection 
of  that  particular  stage  which  he  has  reached  in  the 
perception  of  the  divine  nature  and  of  his  own  rela- 
tion to  it;  and  as  we  approach  the  full  perception  of 
Truth,  so  the  life-principle  within  us  expands,  the  old 
bonds  and  limitations  which  had  no  existence  in  reality 
fall  off  from  us,  and  we  enter  inta  regions  of  light, 
liberty,  and  power,  of  which  we  had  previously  no 
conception.  It  is  impossible,  therefore,  to  over- 
estimate the  importance  of  being  able  to  realise  the 
symbol  for  a  symbol,  and  being  able  to  penetrate  to 
the  inner  substance  which  it  represents.  Life  itself 
is  to  be  realised  only  by  the  conscious  experience  of 
its  livingness  in  ourselves,  and  it  is  the  endeavour  to 
translate  these  experiences  into  terms  which  shall  sug- 
gest a  corresponding  idea  to  others  that  gives  rise  to 
all  symbolism. 

The  nearer  those  we  address  have  approached  to  the 
actual  experience,  the  more  transparent  the  symbol 
becomes;  and  the  further  they  are  from  such  experi- 
ence the  thicker  is  the  veil;  and  our  whole  progress 
consists  in  the  fuller  and  fuller  translation  of  the  sym- 
bols into  clearer  and  clearer  statements  of  that  for 
which  they  stand.  But  the  first  step,  without  which 
all  succeeding  ones  must  remain  impossible,  is  to  con- 
vince people  that  symbols  are  symbols,  and  not  the 
very  Truth  itself.  And  the  difficulty  consists  in  this, 
that  if  the  symbolism  is  in  any  degree  adequate,  it 
must,  in  some  measure,  represent  the  form  of  Truth, 


The  Hidden  Power  5 

just  as  the  modelling  of  a  drapery  suggests  the  form 
of  the  figure  beneath.  They  have  a  certain  conscious- 
ness that  somehow  they  are  in  the  presence  of  Truth ; 
and  this  leads  people  to  resent  any  removal  of  those 
folds  of  drapery  which  have  hitherto  conveyed  this 
idea  to  their  minds. 

There  is  sufficient  indication  of  the  inner  Truth  in 
the  outward  form  to  afford  an  excuse  for  the  timorous, 
and  those  who  have  not  sufficient  mental  energy  to 
think  for  themselves,  to  cry  out  that  finality  has  already 
been  attained,  and  that  any  further  search  into  the 
matter  must  end  in  the  destruction  of  Truth.  But  in 
raising  such  an  outcry  they  betray  their  ignorance  of 
the  very  nature  of  Truth,  which  is  that  it  can  never 
be  destroyed :  the  very  fact  that  Truth  is  Truth  makes 
this  impossible.  And  again  they  exhibit  their  igno- 
rance of  the  first  principle  of  Life — namely,  the  Law 
of  Growth,  which  throughout  the  universe  perpetually 
pushes  forward  into  more  and  more  vivid  forms  of 
expression,  having  expansion  everywhere  and  finality 
nowhere. 

Such  ignorant  objections  need  not,  therefore,  alarm 
us ;  and  we  should  endeavour  to  show  those  who  make 
them  that  what  they  fear  is  the  only  natural  order  of 
the  Divine  Life,  which  is  "over  all,  and  through  all, 
and  in  all."  But  we  must  do  this  gently,  and  not  by 
forcibly  thrusting  upon  them  the  object  of  their  terror, 
and  so  repelling  them  from  all  study  of  the  subject. 
We  should  endeavour  gradually  to  lead  them  to  see 


6  The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

that  there  is  something  interior  to  what  they  have 
hitherto  held  to  be  ultimate  Truth,  and  to  realise  that 
the  sensation  of  emptiness  and  dissatisfaction,  which 
from  time  to  time  will  persist  in  making  itself  felt  in 
their  hearts,  is  nothing  else  than  the  pressing  forward 
of  the  spirit  within  to  declare  that  inner  side  of  things 
which  alone  can  satisfactorily  account  for  what  we 
observe  on  the  exterior,  and  without  the  knowledge 
of  which  we  can  never  perceive  the  true  nature  of 
our  inheritance  in  the  Universal  Life  which  is  the 
Life  Everlasting. 

II 

What,  then,  is  this  central  principle  which  is  at  the 
root  of  all  things?  It  is  Life.  But  not  life  as  we 
recognise  it  in  particular  forms  of  manifestation;  it 
is  something  more  interior  and  concentrated  than  that. 
It  is  that  "unity  of  the  spirit"  which  is  unity,  simply 
because  it  has  not  yet  passed  into  diversity.  Perhaps 
this  is  not  an  easy  idea  to  grasp,  but  it  is  the  root  of 
all  scientific  conception  of  spirit;  for  without  it  there 
is  no  common  principle  to  which  we  can  refer  the 
innumerable  forms  of  manifestation  that  spirit  as- 
sumes. 

It  is  the  conception  of  Life  as  the  sum-total  of  all 
its  undistributed  powers,  being  as  yet  none  of  these 
in  particular,  but  all  of  them  in  potentiality.  This  is, 
no  doubt,  a  highly  abstract  idea,  but  it  is  essentially 
that  of  the  centre  from  which  growth  takes  place  by 


The  Hidden  Power  J 

expansion  in  every  direction.  This  is  that  last  re- 
siduum which  defies  all  our  powers  of  analysis.  This 
is  truly  "the  unknowable,"  not  in  the  sense  of  the 
unthinkable  but  of  the  unanalysable.  It  is  the  subject 
of  perception,  not  of  knowledge,  if  by  knowledge  we 
mean  that  faculty  which  estimates  the  relations  be- 
tween things,  because  here  we  have  passed  beyond  any 
questions  of  relations,  and  are  face  to  face  with  the 
absolute. 

This  innermost  of  all  is  absolute  Spirit.  It  is  Life 
as  yet  not  differentiated  into  any  specific  mode;  it  is 
the  universal  Life  which  pervades  all  things  and  is  at 
the  heart  of  all  appearances. 

To  come  into  the  knowledge  of  this  is  to  come  into 
the  secret  of  power,  and  to  enter  into  the  secret  place 
of  Living  Spirit.  Is  it  illogical  first  to  call  this  the 
unknowable,  and  then  to  speak  of  coming  into  the 
knowledge  of  it?  Perhaps  so;  but  no  less  a  writer 
than  St.  Paul  has  set  the  example;  for  does  he  not 
speak  of  the  final  result  of  all  searchings  into  the 
heights  and  depths  and  lengths  and  breadths  of  the 
inner  side  of  things  as  being,  to  attain  the  knowledge 
of  that  Love  which  passeth  knowledge.  If  he  is  thus 
boldly  illogical  in  phrase,  though  not  in  fact,  may  we 
not  also  speak  of  knowing  "the  unknowable"?  We 
may,  for  this  knowledge  is  the  root  of  all  other 
knowledge. 

The  presence  of  this  undifferentiated  universal  life- 
power  is  the  final  axiomatic  fact  to  which  all  our 


8  The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

analysis  must  ultimately  conduct  us.  On  whatever 
plane  we  make  our  analysis  it  must  always  abut  upon 
pure  essence,  pure  energy,  pure  being;  that  which 
knows  itself  and  recognises  itself,  but  which  cannot 
dissect  itself  because  it  is  not  built  up  of  parts,  but 
is  ultimately  integral:  it  is  pure  Unity.  But  analysis 
which  does  not  lead  to  synthesis  is  merely  destructive : 
it  is  the  child  wantonly  pulling  the  flower  to  pieces 
and  throwing  away  the  fragments;  not  the  botanist, 
also  pulling  the  flower*  to  pieces,  but  building  up  in  his 
mind  from  those  carefully  studied  fragments  a  vast 
synthesis  of  the  constructive  power  of  Nature,  embrac- 
ing the  laws  of  the  formation  of  all  flower-forms. 
The  value  of  analysis  is  to  lead  us  to  the  original 
starting-point  of  that  which  we  analyse,  and  so  to 
teach  us  the  laws  by  which  its  final  form  springs  from 
this  centre. 

Knowing  the  law  of  its  construction,  we  furn  our 
analysis  into  a  synthesis,  and  we  thus  gain  a  power  of 
building  up  which  must  always  be  beyond  the  reach 
of  those  who  regard  "the  unknowable"  as  one  with 
"not-being." 

This  idea  of  the  unknowable  is  the  root  of  all 
materialism;  and  yet  no  scientific  man,  however 
materialistic  his  proclivities,  treats  the  unanalysable 
residuum  thus  when  he  meets  it  in  the  experiments  of 
his  laboratory.  On  the  contrary,  he  makes  this  final 
unanalysable  fact  the  basis  of  his  synthesis.  He  finds 
that  in  the  last  resort  it  is  energy  of  some  kind,  whether 


The  Hidden  Power  9 

as  heat  or  as  motion;  but  he  does  not  throw  up  his 
scientific  pursuits  because  he  cannot  analyse  it  further. 
He  adopts  the  precisely  opposite  course,  and  realises 
that  the  conservation  of  energy,  its  indestructibility, 
and  the  impossibility  of  adding  to  or  detracting  from 
the  sum-total  of  energy  in  the  world,  is  the  one  solid 
and  unchanging  fact  on  which  alone  the  edifice  of 
physical  science  can  be  built  up.  He  bases  all  his 
knowledge  upon  his  knowledge  of  "the  unknowable." 
And  rightly  so,  for  if  he  could  analyse  this  energy 
into  yet  further  factors,  then  the  same  problem  of  "the 
unknowable"  would  meet  him  still.  All  our  progress 
consists  in  continually  pushing  the  unknowable,  in  the 
sense  of  the  unanalysable  residuum,  a  step  further 
back ;  but  that  there  should  be  no  ultimate  unanalysable 
residuum  anywhere  is  an  inconceivable  idea. 

In  thus  realising  the  undifferentiated  unity  of  Liv- 
ing Spirit  as  the  central  fact  of  any  system,  whether 
the  system  of  the  entire  universe  or  of  a  single  organ- 
ism, we  are  therefore  following  a  strictly  scientific 
method.  We  pursue  our  analysis  until  it  necessarily 
leads  us  to  this  final  fact,  and  then  we  accept  this 
fact  as  the  basis  of  our  synthesis.  The  Science  of 
Spirit  is  thus  not  one  whit  less  scientific  than  the 
Science  of  Matter;  and,  moreover,  it  starts  from  the 
same  initial  fact,  the  fact  of  a  living  energy  which 
defies  definition  or  explanation,  wherever  we  find  it; 
but  it  differs  from  the  science  of  matter  in  that  it 
contemplates  this  energy  under  an  aspect  of  responsive 


io         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

intelligence  which  does  not  fall  within  the  scope  of 
physical  science,  as  such.  The  Science  of  Spirit  and 
the  Science  of  Matter  are  not  opposed.  They  are 
complementaries,  and  neither  is  fully  comprehensible 
without  some  knowledge  of  the  other ;  and,  being  really 
but  two  portions  of  one  whole,  they  insensibly  shade 
off  into  each  other  in  a  border-land  where  no  arbitrary 
line  can  be  drawn  between  them.  Science  studied  in  a 
truly  scientific  spirit,  following  out  its  own  deductions 
unflinchingly  to  their  legitimate  conclusions,  will  al- 
ways reveal  the  twofold  aspect  of  things,  the  inner  and 
the  outer;  and  it  is  only  a  truncated  and  maimed  sci- 
ence that  refuses  to  recognise  both. 

The  study  of  the  material  world  is  not  Materialism, 
if  it  be  allowed  to  progress  to  its  legitimate  issue. 
Materialism  is  that  limited  view  of  the  universe  which 
will  not  admit  the  existence  of  anything  but  mechanical 
effects  of  mechanical  causes,  and  a  system  which  rec- 
ognises no  higher  power  than  the  physical  forces  of 
nature  must  logically  result  in  having  no  higher  ulti- 
mate appeal  than  to  physical  force  or  to  fraud  as  its 
alternative.  I  speak,  of  course,  of  the  tendency  of 
the  system,  not  of  the  morality  of  individuals,  who 
are  often  very  far  in  advance  of  the  systems  they 
profess.  But  as  we  would  avoid  the  propagation  of  a 
mode  of  thought  whose  effects  history  shows  only 
too  plainly,  whether  in  the  Italy  of  the  Borgias,  or  the 
France  of  the  First  Revolution,  or  the  Commune  of 
the  Franco-Prussian  War,  we  should  set  ourselves  to 


The  Hidden  Power  n 

study  that  inner  and  spiritual  aspect  of  things  which 
is  the  basis  of  a  system  whose  logical  results  are  truth 
and  love  instead  of  perfidy  and  violence. 

Some  of  us,  doubtless,  have  often  wondered  why 
the  Heavenly  Jerusalem  is  described  in  the  Book  of 
Revelations  as  a  cube ;  "the  length  and  the  breadth  and 
the  height  of  it  are  equal."  This  is  because  the  cube 
is  the  figure  of  perfect  stability,  and  thus  represents 
Truth,  which  can  never  be  overthrown.  Turn  it  on 
what  side  you  will,  it  still  remains  the  perfect  cube, 
always  standing  upright;  you  cannot  upset  it.  This 
figure,  then,  represents  the  manifestation  in  concrete 
solidity  of  that  central  life-giving  energy,  which  is  not 
itself  any  one  plane  but  generates  all  planes,  the  planes 
of  the  above  and  of  the  below  and  of  all  four  sides. 
But  it  is  at  the  same  time  a  city,  a  place  of  habitation ; 
and  this  is  because  that  which  is  "the  within"  is  Living 
Spirit,  which  has  its  dwelling  there. 

As  one  plane  of  the  cube  implies  all  the  other  planes 
and  also  "the  within,"  so  any  plane  of  manifestation 
implies  the  others  and  also  that  "within"  which  gen- 
erates them  all.  Now,  if  we  would  make  any  progress 
in  the  spiritual  side  of  science — and  every  department 
of  science  has  its  spiritual  side — we  must  always  keep 
our  minds  fixed  upon  this  "innermost  within"  which 
contains  the  potential  of  all  outward  manifestation,  the 
"fourth .dimension"  which  generates  the  cube;  and  our 
common  forms  of  speech  show  how  intuitively  we  do 
this.  We  speak  of  the  spirit  in  which  an  act  is  done, 


12         T\ie  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

of  entering  into  the  spirit  of  a  game,  of  the  spirit  of 
the  time,  and  so  on.  Everywhere  our  intuition  points 
out  the  spirit  as  the  true  essence  of  things;  and  it  is 
only  when  we  commence  arguing  about  them  from 
without,  instead  of  from  within,  that  our  true  percep- 
tion of  their  nature  is  lost. 

The  scientific  study  of  spirit  consists  in  following 
up  intelligently  and  according  to  definite  method  the 
same  principle  that  now  only  flashes  upon  us  at  inter- 
vals fitfully  and  vaguely.  When  we  once  realise  that 
this  universal  and  unlimited  power  of  spirit  is  at  the 
root  of  all  things  and  of  ourselves  also,  then  we  have 
obtained  the  key  to  the  whole  position;  and,  however 
far  we  may  carry  our  studies  in  spiritual  science,  we 
shall  nowhere  find  anything  else  but  particular  devel- 
opments of  this  one  universal  principle.  "The  King- 
dom of  Heaven  is  within  you." 


ill 


I  have  laid  stress  on  the  fact  that  the  "innermost 
within"  of  all  things  is  living  Spirit,  and  that  the 
Science  of  Spirit  is  distinguished  from  the  Science  of 
Matter  in  that  it  contemplates  Energy  under  an  aspect 
of  responsive  intelligence  which  does  not  fall  within 
the  scope  of  physical  science,  as  such.  These  are  the 
two  great  points  to  lay  hold  of  if  we  would  retain  a 
clear  idea  of  Spiritual  Science,  and  not  be  misled 
by  arguments  drawn  from  the  physical  side  of  Science 


The  Hidden  Power  13 

only — the  livingness  of  the  originating  principle  which 
is  at  the  heart  of  all  things,  and  its  intelligent  and 
responsive  nature.  Its  livingness  is  patent  to  our 
observation,  at  any  rate  from  the  point  where  we 
recognise  it  in  the  vegetable  kingdom;  but  its  intelli- 
gence and  responsiveness  are  not,  perhaps,  at  once 
so  obvious.  Nevertheless,  a  little  thought  will  soon 
lead  us  to  recognise  this  also. 

No  one  can  deny  that  there  is  an.  intelligent  order 
throughout  all  nature,  for  it  requires  the  highest  in- 
telligence of  our  most  highly-trained  minds  to  follow 
the  steps  of  this  universal  intelligence  which  is  always 
in  advance  of  them.  The  more  deeply  we  investigate 
the  world  we  live  in,  the  more  clear  it  must  become  to 
us  that  all  our  science  is  the  translation  into  words 
or  numerical  symbols  of  that  order  which  already 
exists.  If  the  clear  statement  of  this  existing  order 
is  the  highest  that  the  human  intellect  can  reach,  this 
surely  argues  a  corresponding  intelligence  in  the  power 
which  gives  rise  to  this  great  sequence  of  order  and 
interrelation,  so  as  to  constitute  one  harmonious  whole.' 
Now,  unless  we  fall  back  on  the  idea  of  a  workman 
working  upon  material  external  to  himself — in  which 
case  we  have  to  explain  the  phenomenon  of  the  work- 
man— the  only  conception  we  can  form  of  this  power 
is  that  it  is  the  Living  Spirit  inherent  in  the  heart  of 
every  atom,  giving  it  outward  form  and  definition,  and 
becoming  in  it  those  intrinsic  polarities  which  consti- 
tute its  characteristic  nature. 


14         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

There  is  no  random  work  here.  Every  attraction 
and  repulsion  acts  with  its  proper  force  collecting  the 
atoms  into  molecules,  the  molecules  into  tissues,  the 
tissues  into  organs,  and  the  organs  into  individuals. 
At  each  stage  of  the  progress  we  get  the  sum  of  the 
intelligent  forces  which  operate  in  the  constituent  parts, 
plus  a  higher  degree  of  intelligence  which  we  may 
regard  as  the  collective  intelligence  superior  to  that 
of  the  mere  sum-total  of  the  parts,  something  which 
belongs  to  the  individual  as  a  whole,  and  not  to  the 
parts  as  such.  These  are  facts  which  can  be  amply 
proved  from  physical  science;  and  they  also  supply  a 
great  law  in  spiritual  science,  which  is  that  in  any 
collective  body  the  intelligence  of  the  whole  is  superior 
to  that  of  the  sum  of  the  parts. 

Spirit  is  at  the  root  of  all  things,  and  thoughtful 
observation  shows  that  its  operation  is  guided  by  un- 
failing intelligence  which  adapts  means  to  ends,  and 
harmonises  the  entire  universe  of  manifested  being  in 
those  wonderful  ways  which  physical  science  renders 
clearer  every  day;  and  this  intelligence  must  be  in  the 
generating  spirit  itself,  because  there  is  no  other  source 
from  which  it  could  proceed.  On  these  grounds,  there- 
fore, we  may  distinctly  affirm  that  Spirit  is  intelligent, 
and  that  whatever  it  does  is  done  by  the  intelligent 
adaptation  of  means  to  ends. 

But  Spirit  is  also  responsive.  And  here  we  have 
to  fall  back  upon  the  law  above  stated,  that  the  mere 
sum  of  the  intelligence  of  Spirit  in  lower  degrees  of 


The  Hidden  Power  i$ 

manifestation  is  not  equal  to  the  intelligence  of  the 
complex  whole,  as  a  whole.  This  is  a  radical  law 
which  we  cannot  impress  upon  our  minds  too  deeply. 
The  degree  of  spiritual  intelligence  is  marked  by  the 
wholeness  of  the  organism  through  which  it  finds 
expression;  and  therefore  the  more  highly  organised 
being  has  a  degree  of  spirit  which  is  superior  to,  and 
consequently  capable  of  exercising  control  over,  all 
lower  or  less  fully-integrated  degrees  of  spirit ;  and  this 
being  so,  we  can  now  begin  to  see  why  the  spirit  that 
is  the  "innermost  within"  of  all  things  is  responsive 
as  well  as  intelligent. 

Being  intelligent,  it  knows,  and  spirit  being  ulti- 
mately all  there  is,  that  which  it  knows  is  itself.  Hence 
it  is  that  power  which  recognises  itself;  and  accord- 
ingly the  lower  powers  of  it  recognise  its  higher  pow- 
ers, and  by  the  law  of  attraction  they  are  bound  to 
respond  to  the  higher  degrees  of  themselves.  On  this 
general  principle,  therefore,  spirit,  under  whatever 
exterior  revealed,  is  necessarily  intelligent  and  respon- 
sive. But  intelligence  and  responsiveness  imply  per- 
sonality; and  we  may  therefore  now  advance  a  step 
further  and  argue  that  all  spirit  contains  the  elements 
of  personality,  even  though,  in  any  particular  instance, 
it  may  not  yet  be  expressed  as  that  individual  person- 
ality which  we  find  in  ourselves. 

In  short,  spirit  is  always  personal  in  its  nature, 
even  when  it  has  not  yet  attained  to  that  degree 
of  synthesis  which  is  sufficient  to  render  it  personal 


16         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

in  manifestation.  In  ourselves  the  synthesis  has  pro- 
ceeded far  enough  to  reach  that  degree,  and  there- 
fore we  recognise  ourselves  as  the  manifestation 
of  personality.  The  human  kingdom  is  the  kingdom 
of  the  manifestation  of  that  personality,  which  is 
of  the  essence  of  spiritual  substance  on  every  plane. 
Or,  to  put  the  whole  argument  in  a  simpler  form,  we 
may  say  that  our  own  personality  must  necessarily 
have  had  its  origin  in  that  which  is  personal,  on  the 
principle  that  you  cannot  get  more  out  of  a  bag  than 
it  contains. 

In  ourselves,  therefore,  we  find  that  more  perfect 
synthesis  of  the  spirit  into  manifested  personality 
which  is  wanting  in  the  lower  kingdoms  of  nature, 
and,  accordingly,  since  spirit  is  necessarily  that  which 
knows  itself  and  must,  therefore,  recognise  its  own 
degrees  in  its  various  modes,  the  spirit  in  all  degrees 
below  that  of  human  personality  is  bound  to  respond 
to  itself  in  that  superior  degree  which  constitutes 
human  individuality ;  and  this  is  the  basis  of  the  power 
of  human  thought  to  externalise  itself  in  infinite  forms 
of  its  own  ordering. 

But  if  the  subordination  of  the  lower  degrees  of 
spirit  to  the  higher  is  one  of  the  fundamental  laws 
which  lie  at  the  bottom  of  the  creative  power  of 
thought,  there  is  another  equally  fundamental  law 
which  places  a  salutary  restraint  upon  the  abuse  of 
that  power.  It  is  the  law  that  we  can  command  the 
powers  of  the  universal  for  our  own  purposes  only 


The  Hidden  Power  17 

in  proportion  as  we  first  realise  and  obey  their  generic 
character.  We  can  employ  water  for  any  purpose 
which  does  not  require  it  to  run  up-hill,  and  we  can 
utilise  electricity  for  any  purpose  that  does  not  re- 
quire it  to  pass  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  potential. 

So  with  that  universal  power  which  we  call  the 
Spirit.  It  has  an  inherent  generic  character  with  which 
we  must  comply  if  we  would  employ  it  for  our  specific 
purposes,  and  this  character  is  summed  up  in  the  one 
word  "goodness."  The  Spirit  is  Life,  hence  its 
generic  tendency  must  always  be  life  ward  or  to  the 
increase  of  the  livingness  of  every  individual.  And 
since  it  is  universal  it  can  have  no  particular  interests 
to  serve,  and  therefore  its  action  must  always  be 
equally  for  the  benefit  of  all.  This  is  the  generic 
character  of  spirit;  and  just  as  water,  or  electricity,  or 
any  other  of  the  physical  forces  of  the  universe,  will 
not  work  contrary  to  their  generic  character,  so  Spirit 
will  not  work  contrary  to  its  generic  character. 

The  inference  is  obvious.  If  we  would  use  Spirit 
we  must  follow  the  law  of  the  Spirit  which  is  "Good- 
ness." This  is  the  only  limitation.  If  our  originating 
intention  is  good,  we  may  employ  the  spiritual  power 
for  what  purpose  we  will.  And  how  is  "goodness"  to 
be  defined  ?  Simply  by  the  child's  definition  that  what 
is  bad  is  not  good,  and  that  what  is  good  is  not  bad; 
we  all  know  the  difference  between  bad  and  good 
instinctively.  If  we  will  conform  to  this  principle 
of  obedience*  ta  the  generic  law  of  the  Spirit,  all 


1 8         The  Hiddevt  Power  and  Other  Essays 

that  remains  is  for  us  to  study  the  law  of  the  propor- 
tion which  exists  between  the  more  and  less  fully 
integrated  modes  of  Spirit,  and  then  bring  our  knowl- 
edge to  bear  with  determination. 


rv 


The  law  of  spirit,  to  which  our  investigation  has 
now  led  us,  is  of  the  very  widest  scope.  We  have 
followed  it  up  from  the  conception  of  the  intelligence 
of  spirit,  subsisting  in  the  initial  atoms,  to  the  aggre- 
gation of  this-  intelligence  as  the  conscious  identity 
of  the  individual.  But  there  is  no  reason  why  this 
law  should  Cease  to  operate  at  this  point,  or  at  any 
print  short  of  the  whole.  The  test  of  the  soundness 
of  any  principle  is  that  it  can  operate  as  effectively 
on  a  large  scale  as  on  a  small  one,  that  though  the 
nature  of  its  field  is  determined  by  the  nature  of  the 
principle  itself,  the  extent  of  its  field  is  unlimited. 
If,  therefore,  we  continue  to  follow  up  the  law  we 
have  been  considering,  it  leads  us  to  the  conception 
of  a  unit  of  intelligence  as  far  superior  to  that  of 
the  individual  man  as  the  unity  of  his  individual 
intelligence  is  superior  to  that  of  the  intelligence  of 
any  single  atom  of  his  body;  and  thus  we  may  con- 
ceive of  a  collective  individuality  representing  the 
spiritual  character  of  any  aggregate  of  men,  the  in- 
habitants of  a  city,  a  district,  a  country,  or  of  the 
entire  world. 


The  Hidden  Power  19 

Nor  need  the  process  stop  here.  On  the  same  prin- 
ciple there  would  be  a  superior  collective  individuality 
for  the  humanity  of  the  entire  solar  system,  and  finally 
we  reach  the  conception  of  a  supreme  intelligence 
bringing  together  in  itself  the  collective  individualities 
of  all  the  systems  in  the  universe.  This  is  by  no 
means  a  merely  fanciful  notion.  We  find  it  as  the  law 
by  which  our  own  conscious  individuality  is  consti- 
tuted; and  we  find  the  analogous  principle  working 
universally  on  the  physical  plane.  It  is  known  to  phys- 
ical science  as  the  "law  of  inverse  squares,"  by  which 
the  forces  of  reciprocal  attraction  or  repulsion,  as  the 
case  may  be,  are  not  merely  equivalent  to  the  sum  of 
the  forces  emitted  by  the  two  bodies  concerned,  but 
are  equivalent  to  these  two-  forces  multiplied  together 
and  divided  by  the  square  of  the  distance  between 
them,  so  that  the  resultant  power*  continually  rises  in  a 
rapidly-increasing  ratio  as- the* two* reciprocally  exciting 
bodies  approach  one  another. 

Since  this  law  is  so  universal  throughout  physical 
nature,  the  doctrine  of  continuity  affords  every  ground 
for  supposing  that  its  analogue  holds  good  in  respect 
of  spiritual  nature.  We  must  never  lose  sight  of  the 
old-world  saying  that  "a  truth  on  one  plane  is  a  truth 
on  all."  If  a  principle  exists  at  all  it  exists  universally. 
We  must  not  allow  ourselves  to  be  misled  by  appear- 
ances; we  must  remember  that  the  perceptible  results 
of  the  working  of  any  principle  consist  of  two  fac- 
tors— the  principle  itself  or  the  active  factor,  and  the 


2O         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

subject-matter  on  which  it  acts  tfr  the  passive  factor; 
and  that  while  the  former  is  invariable,  the  latter  is 
variable,  and  that  the  operation  of  the  same  invariable 
upon  different  variables  must  necessarily  produce  a 
variety  of  results.  This  at  once  becomes  evident  if  we 
state  it  mathematically;  for  example,  a,  b  or  c,  multi- 
plied by  x  give  respectively  the  results  ax,  bx,  ex,  which 
differ  materially  from  one  another,  though  the  factor 
x  always  remains  the  same. 

This  law  of  the  generation  of  power  by  attraction 
applies  on  the  spiritual  as  well  as  on  the  physical  plane, 
and  acts  with  the  same  mathematical  precision  on  both ; 
and  thus  the  human  individuality  consists,  not  in  the 
mere  aggregation  of  its  parts,  whether  spiritual  or 
corporeal,  but  in  the  unity  of  power  resulting  from 
the  intimate  association  into  which  those  parts  enter 
with  one  another,  which  unity,  according  to  this  law 
of  the  generation  of  power  by  attraction,  is  infinitely 
superior,  both  in  intelligence  and  power,  to  any  less 
fully  integrated  mode  of  spirit.  Thus  a  natural  prin- 
ciple, common  alike  to  physical  and  spiritual  law,  fully 
accounts  for  all  claims  that  have  ever  been  made  for 
the  creative  power  of  our  thought  over  all  things  Jhat 
come  within  the  circle  of  our  own  particular  life. 
Thus  it  is  that  each  man  is  the  centre  of  his  own  uni- 
verse, and  has  the  power,  by  directing  his  own  thought, 
to  control  all  things  therein. 

But,  as  I  have  said  above,  there  is  no  reason  why 
this  principle  should  not  be  recognised  as  expanding 


The  Hidden  Power  21 

from  the  individual  until  it  embraces  the  entire  uni- 
verse. Each  man,  as  the  centre  of  his  own  world,  is 
himself  centred  in  a  higher  system  in  which  he  is  only 
one  of  innumerable  similar  atoms,  and  this  system 
again  in  a  higher  until  we  reach  the  supreme  centre 
of  all  things;  intelligence  and  power  increase  from 
centre  to  centre  in  a  ratio  rising  with  inconceivable 
rapidity,  according  to  the  law  we  are  now  investigat- 
ing, until  they  culminate  in  illimitable  intelligence  and 
power  commensurate  with  All-Being. 

Naw  we  have  seen  that  the  relation  of  man  to  the 
lower  modes  of  spirit  is  that  of  superiority  and  com- 
mand, but  what  is  his  relation  to  these  higher  modes? 
In  any  harmoniously  constituted  system  the  relation  of 
the  part  to  the  whole  never  interferes  with  the  free 
operation  of  the  part  in  the  performance  of  its  own 
functions ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  precisely  by  means 
of  this  relation  that  each  part  is  maintained  in  a  posi- 
tion to  discharge  all  functions  for  which  it  is  fitted. 
Thus,  then,  the  subordination  of  the  individual  man 
to  the  supreme  mind,  so  far  from  curtailing  his  liberty, 
is  the  very  condition  which  makes  liberty  possible,  or 
even  life  itself.  The  generic  movement  of  the  whole 
necessarily  carries  the  part  along  with  it;  and  so  long 
as1  the  part  allows  itself  thus  to  be  carried  onwards 
there  will  be  no  hindrance  to  its  free  working  in  any 
direction  for  which  it  is  fitted  by  its  own  individuality. 
This  truth  was  set  forth  in  the  old  Hindu  religion  as 
the  Car  oi  Jaggarnath — an  ideal  car  only,  which  later 


,22         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

ages  degraded  into  a  terribly  material  symbol.  "Jag- 
garnath"  means  "Lord  of  the  Universe,"  and  thus  sig- 
nifies the  Universal  Mind.  This,  by  the  law  of  Being, 
must  always  move  forward  regardless  of  any  attempts 
•of  individuals  to  restrain  it.  Those  who  mount  upon 
its  car  move  onward  with  it  to  endlessly  advancing 
evolution,  while  those  who  seek  to  oppose  it  must  be 
crushed  beneath  its  wheels,  for  it  is  no  respecter  of 
persons. 

If,  therefore,  we  would  employ  the  universal  law 
of  spirit  to  control  our  own  little  individual  worlds, 
we  must  also  recognise  it  in  respect  to  the  supreme 
centre  round  which  we  ourselves  revolve.  But  not  in 
the  old  way  of  supposing  that  this  centre  is  a  capricious 
Individuality  external  to  ourselves,  which  can  be  pro- 
pitiated or  cajoled  into  giving  the  good  which  he  is 
not  good  enough  to  give  of  his  own  proper  motion. 
So  long  as  we  retain  this  infantile  idea  we  have  not 
come  into  the  liberty  which  results  from  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  certainty  of  Law.  Supreme  Mind  is 
Supreme  Law,  and  can  be  calculated  upon  with  the 
same  accuracy  as  when  manifested  in  any  of  the  par- 
ticular laws  of  the  physical  world;  and  the  result  of 
studying,  understanding  and  obeying  this  Supreme 
Law  is  that  we  thereby  acquire  the  power  to  use  it. 
Nor  need  we  fear  it  with  the  old  fear  which  comes 
from  ignorance,  for  we  can  rely  with  confidence  upon 
the  proposition  that  the  whole  can  have  no  interest 
adverse  to  the  parts  of  which  it  is  composed ;  and  con- 


The  Hidden  Power  23 

versely  that  the  part  can  have  no  interest  adverse  to 
the  whole. 

Our  ignorance  of  our  relation  to  the  whole  may 
make  us  appear  to  have  separate  interests,  but  a  truer 
knowledge  must  always  show  such  an  idea  to  be  mis- 
taken. For  this  reason,  therefore,  the  same  responsive- 
ness of  spirit  which  manifests  itself  as  obedience  to 
our  wishes,  when  we  look  to  those  degrees  of  spirit 
which  are  lower  than  her  own  individuality,  must  man- 
ifest itself  as  a  necessary  inflowing  of  intelligence  and 
power  when  we  look  to  the  infinity  of  spirit,  of  which 
our  individuality  is  a  singular  expression,  because  in 
so  looking  upwards  we  are  looking  for  the  higher 
degrees  of  ourself. 

The  increased  vitality  of  the  parts  means  the  in- 
creased vitality  of  the  whole,  and  since  it  is  impossible 
to  conceive  of  spirit  otherwise  than  as  a  continually 
expanding  principle  of  Life,  the  demand  for  such  in- 
creased vitality  must,  by  the  inherent  nature  of  spirit, 
be  met  by  a  corresponding  supply  of  continually  grow- 
ing intelligence  and  power.  Thus,  by  a  natural  law, 
the  demand  creates  the  supply,  and  this  supply  may 
be  freely  applied  to  any  and  every  subject-matter  that 
commends  itself  to  us.  There  is  no  limit  to  the  supply 
of  this  energy  other  than  what  we  ourselves  put  to  it 
by  our  thought ;  nor  is  there  any  limit  to  the  purposes 
we  may  make  it  serve  other  than  the  one  grand  Law 
of  Order,  which  says  that  good  things  used  for  wrong 
purposes  become  evil.  The  consideration  of  the  intelli- 


24         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

gent  and  responsive  nature  of  spirit  shows  that  there 
can  be  no  limitations  but  these.  The  one  is  a  limitation 
inherent  in  spirit  itself,  and  the  other  is  a  limitation 
which  has-  no-  root  except  in  our  own  ignorance. 

It  is  true  that  to  maintain  our  healthy  action  within 
the  circle  of  our  own  individual  world  we  must  con- 
tinually move  forward  with  the  movement  of  the  larger 
whole  of  which  we  form  a  part.  Bujt  this  does  not 
imply  any  restriction  of  our  liberty  to  make  the  fullest 
use  of  our  lives  in  accordance  with  those  universal 
principles  of  life  upon  which  they  are  founded;  for 
there  is  not  one  law  for  the  part  and  another  for  the 
whole,  but  the  same  law  of  Being  permeates  both  alike. 
In  proportion,  therefore,  as  we  realise  the  true  law  of 
our  own  individuality  we  shall  find  that  it  is  one  with 
the  law  of  progress  for  the  race.  The  collective  indi- 
viduality of  mankind  is  only  the  reproduction  on  a 
larger  scale  of  the  personal  individuality;  and  what- 
ever action  truly  develops  the  inherent  powers  of  the 
individual  must  necessarily  be  in  line  with  that  for- 
ward march  of  the  universal  mind  which  is  the  evolu- 
tion of  humanity  as  a  whole. 

Selfishness  is  a  narrow  view  of  our  own  nature 
which  loses  sight  of  our  place  in  relation  to  the  whole, 
not  perceiving  that  it  is  from  this  very  relation  that 
our  life  is  drawn.  It  is  ignorance  of  our  own  possi~ 
bilities  and  consequent  limitation  of  our  own  powers. 
If,  therefore,  the  evidence  of  harmonious  correlation 
throughout  the  physical  world  leads  irresistibly  to  the 


The  Hidden  Power  25 

inference  of  intelligent  spirit  as  the  innermost  within 
of  all  things,  we  must  recognise  ourselves  also  as 
individual  manifestations  of  the  same  spirit  which  ex- 
presses itself  throughout  the  universe  as  that  power 
of  intelligent  responsiveness  which  is  Love. 


Thus  we  find  ourselves  to  be  a  necessary  and  inte-. 
gral  part  of  the  Infinite  Harmony  of  All-Being;  not 
merely  recognising  this  great  truth  as  a  vague  intuition, 
but  as  the  logical  and  unavoidable  result  of  the  uni- 
versal Life-principle  which  permeates  all  Nature.  We 
find  our  intuition  was  true  because  we  have  discovered 
the  law  which  gave  rise  to  it;  and  now  intuition  and 
investigation  both  unite  in  telling  us  of  our  own  indi- 
vidual place  in  the  great  scheme  of  things.  Even  the 
most  advanced  among  us  have,  as  yet,  little  more  than 
the  faintest  adumbration  of  what  this  place  is.  It  is 
the  place  of  power.  Towards  those  higher  modes  of 
spirit  which  we  speak  of  as  "the  universal,"  the  law 
of  man's  inmost  nature  makes  him  as  a  lens,  draw- 
ing into  the  focus  of  his  own  individuality  all  that  he 
will  of  light  and  power  in  streams  of  inexhaustible 
supply;  and  towards  the  lower  modes  of  spirit,  which 
form  for  each  one  the  sphere  of  his  own  particular 
world,  man  thus  becomes  the  directive  centre  of  energy 
and  order. 

Can  we  conceive  of  any  position  containing  greater 


26         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

possibilities  than  these  ?  The  circle  of  this  vital  influ- 
ence may  expand  as  the  individual  grows  into  the 
wider  contemplation  of  his  unity  with  Infinite  Being; 
but  any  more  comprehensive  law  of  relationship  it 
would  be  impossible  to  formulate.  Emerson  has 
rightly  said  that  a  little  algebra  will  often  do  far  more 
towards  clearing  our  ideas  than  a  large  amount  of 
poetic  simile.  Algebraically  it  is  a  self-evident  propo- 
sition that  any  difference  between  various  powers  of  x 
disappears  when  they  are  compared  with  x  multiplied 
into  itself  to  infinity,  because  there  can  be  no  ratio  be- 
tween any  determinate  power,  however  high,  and  the 
infinite;  and  thus  the  relation  between  the  individual 
and  All-Being  must  always  remain  the  same.1 

But  this  in  no  way  interferes  with  the  law  of  growth, 
by  which  the  individual  rises  to  higher  and  higher 
powers  of  his  own  individuality.  The  unchangeable- 
ness  of  the  relation  between  all  determinate  powers 
of  x  and  infinity  does  not  affect  the  relations  of  the 
different  powers  of  x  between  themselves;  but  rather 
the  fact  that  the  multiplication  of  x  into  itself  to  in- 
finity is  mentally  conceivable  is  the  very  proof  that 
there  is  no  limit  to  the  extent  to  which  it  is  possible 
to  raise  x  in  its  determinate  powers. 

I  trust  unmathematical  readers  will  pardon  my  using 
this  method  of  statement  for  the  benefit  of  others  to 
whom  it  will  carry  conviction.  A  relation  once  clearly 
grasped  in  its  mathematical  aspect  becomes  thence- 


The  Hidden  Power  2? 

forth  one  of  the  unalterable  truths  of  the  universe,  no 
longer  a  thing  to  be  argued  about,  but  an  axiom  which 
may  be  assumed  as  the  foundation  on  which  to  build 
up  the  edifice  of  further  knowledge.  But,  laying  aside 
mathematical  formulae,  we  may  say  that  because  the 
Infinite  is  infinite  there  can  be  no  limit  to  the  extent 
to  which  the  vital  principle  of  growth  may  draw  upon 
it,  and  therefore  there  is  no  limit  to  the  expansion  of 
the  individual's  powers.  Because  we  are  what  we  are, 
we  may  become  what  we  will. 

The  Kabbalists  tell  us  of  "the  lost  word,"  the  word 
of  power  which  mankind  has  lost.  To  him  who  dis- 
covers this  word  all  things  are  possible.  Is  this  mirifk 
word  really  lost?  Yes,  and  No.  It  is  the  open  secret 
of  the  universe,  and  the  Bible  gives  us  the  key  to  it. 
It  tells  us,  "The  Word  is  nigh  thee,  even  in  thy  mouth 
and  in  thy  heart."  It  is  the  most  familiar  of  all  words, 
the  word  which  in  our  heart  we  realise  as  the  centre 
of  our  conscious  being,  and  which  is  in  our  mouth  a 
hundred  times  a  day.  It  is  the  word  "I  AM."  Be- 
cause I  am  what  I  am,  I  may  be  what  I  will  to  be.  My 
individuality  is  one  of  the  modes  in  which  the  Infinite 
expresses  itself,  and  therefore  I  am  myself  that  very 
power  which  I  find  to  be  the  innermost  within  of  all 
things. 

To  me,  thus  realising  the  great  unity  of  all  Spirit, 
the  infinite  is  not  the  indefinite,  for  I  see  it  to  be  the 
infinite  of  Myself.  It  is  the  very  same  I  AM  that  I 
am;  and  this  not  by  any  act  of  uncertain  favour,  but 


28         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

by  the  law  of  polarity  which  is  the  basis  of  all  Nature. 
The  law  of  polarity  is  that  law  according  to  which 
everything  attains  completion  by  manifesting  itself  in 
the  opposite  direction  to  that  from  which  it  started. 
It  is  the  simple  law  by  which  there  can  be  no  inside 
without  an  outside,  nor  one  end  of  a  stick  without  an 
opposite  end. 

Life  is  motion,  and  all  motion  is  the  appearance  of 
energy  at  another  point,  and,  where  any  work  has 
been  done,  under  another  form  than  that  in  which  it 
originated;  but  wherever  it  reappears,  and  in  what- 
ever new  form,  the  vivifying  energy  is  still  the  same. 
This  is  nothing  else  than  the  scientific  doctrine  of  the 
conservation  of  energy,  and  it  is  upon  this  well- 
recognised  principle  that  our  perception  of  ourselves 
as  integral  portions  of  the  great  universal  power  is 
based. 

We  do  well  to  pay  heed  to  the  sayings  of  the  great 
teachers  who  have  taught  that  all  power  is  in  the  "I 
AM,"  and  to  accept  this  teaching  by  faith  in  their  bare 
authority  rather  than  not  accept  it  at  all ;  but  the  more 
excellent  way  is  to  know  why  they  taught  thus,  and  to 
realise  for  ourselves  this  first  great  law  which  all  the 
master-minds  have  realised  throughout  the  ages.  It  is 
indeed  true  that  the  "lost  word"  is  the  one  most  famil- 
iar to  us,  ever  in  our  hearts  and  on  our  lips.  We  have 
lost,  not  the  word,  but  the  realisation  of  its  power. 
And  as  the  infinite  depths  of  meaning  which  the  words 
I  AM  carry  with  them  open  out  to  us,  we  begin  to 


Tlie  Hidden  Power  29 

realise  the  stupendous  truth  that  we  are  ourselves  the 
very  power  which  we  seek. 

It  is  the  polarisation  of  Spirit  from  the  universal 
into  the  particular,  carrying  with  it  all  its  inherent 
powers,  just  as  the  smallest  flame  has  all  the  qualities 
of  fire.  The  I  AM  in  the  individual  is  none  other  than 
the  I  AM  in  the  universal.  It  is  the  same  Power  work- 
ing in  the  smaller  sphere  of  which  the  individual  is  the 
centre.  This  is  the  great  truth  which  the  ancients  set 
forth  under  the  figure  of  the  Macrocosm  and  the 
Microcosm,  the  lesser  I  AM  reproducing  the  precise 
image  of  the  greater,  and  of  which  the  Bible  tells  us 
when  it  speaks  erf  man  as  the  image  of  God. 

Now  the  immense  practical  importance  of  this  prin- 
ciple is  that  it  affords-  the  key  to  the  great  law  that 
"as  a  man  thinks  so  he  is."  We  are  often  asked  why 
this  should  be,  and  the  answer  may  be  stated  as  fol- 
lows: We  know  by  personal  experience  that  we 
realise  our  own  livingness  in  two  ways,  by  our  power 
to  act  and  our  susceptibility  to  feel ;  and  when  we  con- 
sider Spirit  in  the  absolute  we  can  only  conceive  of  it 
as  these  two  modes  of  livingness  carried  to  infinity. 
This,  therefore,  means  infinite  susceptibility.  There 
can  be  no  question  as  to  the  degree  of  sensitiveness,  for 
Spirit  is  sensitiveness,  and  is  thus  infinitely  plastic  to 
the  slightest  touch  that  is  brought  to  bear  upon  it ;  and 
hence  every  thought  we  formulate  sends  its  vibrating 
currents  out  into  the  infinite  of  Spirit,  producing  there 
currents  of  like  quality  but  of  far  vaster  power. 


go         The  Hidden  Power  and/  Other  Essays 

But  Spirit  in  the  Infinite  is  the  Creative  Power  of 
the  universe,  and  the  impact  of  our  thought  upon  it 
thus  sets  in  motion  a  veritable  creative  forte.  And  if 
this  lavr  holds  good  of  one  thought  it  holds  good  of  all. 
and  hence  we  are  continually  creating  for  ourselves  a 
world  of  surroundings  which  accurately  reproduces  the 
complexion  of  our  own  thoughts.  Persistent  thoughts 
will  naturally  produce  a  greater  external  effect  than 
casual  ones  not  centred  upon  any  particular  object. 
Scattered  thoughts  which  recognise  no  principle  of 
unity  will  fail  to  reproduce  any  principle  of  unity. 
The  thought  that  we  are  weak  and  have  no  power  over 
circumstances  results  in  inability  to  control  circum- 
stances, and  the  thought  of  power  produces  power. 

At  every  moment  we  are  dealing  with  an  infinitely 
sensitive  medium  which  stirs  creative  energies  that 
give  form  to  the  slightest  of  our  thought-vibrations. 
This  power  is  inherent  in  us  because  of  our  spiritual 
nature,  and  we  cannot  divest  ourselves  of  it.  It  is 
our  truly  tremendous  heritage  because  it  is  a  power 
which,  if  not  intelligently  brought  into  lines  of  orderly 
activity,  will  spend  its  uncontrolled  forces  in  devastat- 
ing energy.  If  it  is  not  used  to  build  up,  it  will  destroy. 
And  there  is  nothing  exceptional  in  this:  it  is  merely 
the  reappearance  on  the  plane  of  the  universal  and 
undifferentiated  of  the  same  principle  that  pervades 
all  the  forces  of  Nature.  Which  of  these  is  not  de- 
structive unless  drawn  off  into  some  definite  direction  ? 
Accumulated  steam,  accumulated  electricity,  accumu- 


The  Hidden  Power  31 

lated  water,  will  at  length  burst  forth,  carrying  destruc- 
tion all  around ;  but,  drawn  off  through  suitable  chan- 
nels, they  become  sources  of  constructive  power,  in- 
exhaustible as  Nature  itself. 

And  here  let  me  pause  to  draw  attention  to  this  idea 
of  accumulation.  The  greater  the  accumulation  of 
energy,  the  greater  the  danger  if  it  be  not  directed  into 
a  proper  order,  and  the  greater  the  power  if  it  be. 
Fortunately  for  mankind  the  physical  forces,  such  as 
electricity,  do  not  usually  subsist  in  a  highly  concen- 
trated form.  Occasionally  circumstances  concur  to 
produce  such  concentration,  but  as  a  rule  the  elements 
of  power  are  more  or  less  equally  dispersed.  Similarly, 
for  the  mass  of  mankind,  this  spiritual  power  has  not 
yet  reached  a  very  high  degree  of  concentration. 
Every  mind,  it  is  true,  must  be  in  some  measure  a 
centre  of  concentration,  for  otherwise  it  would  have  no 
conscious  individuality;  but  the  power  of  the  indi- 
vidualised mind  rapidly  rises  as  it  recognises  its  unity 
with  the  Infinite  life,  and  its  thought-currents, 
whether  well  or  ill  directed,  then  assume  a  propor- 
tionately great  significance. 

Hence  the  ill  effects  of  wrongly  directed  thought 
are  in  some  degree  mitigated  in  the  great  mass  of  man- 
kind, and  many  causes  are  in  operation  to  give  a  right 
direction  to  their  thoughts,  though  the  thinkers  them- 
selves are  ignorant  of  what  thought-power  is.  To 
give  a  right  direction  to  the  thoughts  of  ignorant 
thinkers  is  the  purpose  of  much  religious  teaching, 


32         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

which  these  uninstructed  ones  must  accept  by  faith 
in  bare  authority  because  they  are  unable  to  realise 
its  true  import.  But  notwithstanding  the  aids  thus 
afforded  to  mankind,  the  general  stream  of  unregu- 
lated thought  cannot  but  have  an  adverse  tendency, 
and  hence  the  great  object  to  which  the  instructed 
mind  directs  its  power  is  to  free  itself  from  the  en- 
tanglements of  disordered  thought,  and  to  help  others 
to  do  the  same.  To  escape  from  this  entanglement 
is  to  attain  perfect  Liberty,  which  is  perfect  Power. 


VI 


The  entanglement  from  which  we  need  to  escape  has 
its  origin  in  the  very  same  principle  which  gives  rise 
to  liberty  and  power.  It  is  the  same  principle  applied 
under  inverted  conditions.  And  here  I  would  draw 
particular  attention  to  the  law  that  any  sequence  fol- 
lowed out  in  an  inverted  order  must  produce  an  in- 
verted result,  for  this  goes  a  long  way  to  explain 
many  of  the  problems  of  life.  The  physical  world 
affords  endless  examples  of  the  working  of  "inver- 
sion." In  the  dynamo  the  sequence  commences  with 
mechanical  force  which  is  ultimately  transformed  into 
the  subtler  power  of  electricity;  but  invert  this  order, 
commence  by  generating  electricity,  and  it  becomes  con- 
verted into  mechanical  force,  as  in  the  motor.  In  the 
one  order  the  rotation  of  a  wheel  produces  electricity, 
and  in  the  opposite  order  electricity  produces  the 


The  Hidden  Power  33 

rotation  of  a  wheel.  Or  to  exhibit  the  same  principle 
in  the  simplest  arithmetical  form,  if  icH-2=5  then 
icK~5=2.  "Inversion"  is  a  factor  of  the  greatest  mag- 
nitude and  has  to  be  reckoned  with;  but  I  must  con- 
tent myself  here  with  only  indicating  the  general  prin- 
ciple that  the  same  power  is  capable  of  producing 
diametrically  opposite  effects  if  it  be  applied  under 
opposite  conditions,  a  truth  which  the  so-called  "ma- 
gicians" of  the  middle  ages  expressed  by  two  triangles, 
placed  inversely  to  one  another.  We  are  apt  to  fall 
into  the  mistake  of  supposing  that  results  of  opposite 
character  require  powers  of  opposite  character  to 
produce  them,  and  our  conceptions  of  things  in  gen- 
eral become  much  simplified  when  we  recognise  that 
this  is  not  the  case,  hut  that  the  same  power  will  pro- 
duce opposite  results  as  it  starts  from  opposite  poles. 

Accordingly  the  inverted  application  of  the  same 
principle  which  gives  rise  to  liberty  and  power  con- 
stitutes the  entanglement  from  which  we  need  ta  be* 
delivered  before  power  and  liberty  can  be  attained, 
and  this  principle  is  expressed  in  the  law  that  "as  a 
man  thinks  so  he  is."  This  is  the  basic  law  of  the 
human  mind.  It  is  Descarte's  "cogito,  ergo  sum."  If 
we  trace  consciousness  to  its  seat  we  find  that  it  is 
purely  subjective.  Our  external  senses  would  cease 
to  exist  were  it  not  for  the  subjective  consciousness 
which  perceives  what  they  communicate  to"  it. 

The  idea  conveyed  to  the  subjective  consciousness 
may  be  false,  but  until  some  truer  idea  is  more*  forcibly 


34         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

impressed  in  its  stead  it  remains  a  substantial  reality 
to  the  mind  which  gives  it  objective  existence.  I  have 
seen  a  man  speak  to  the  stump  of  a  tree  which  in  the 
moonlight  looked  like  a  person  standing  in  a  garden, 
and  repeatedly  ask  its  name  and  what  it  wanted;  and 
so  far  as  the  speaker's  conception  was  concerned  the 
garden  contained  a  living  man  who  refused  to  answer. 
Thus  every  mind  lives  in  a  world  to  which  its  own 
perceptions  give  objective  reality.  Its  perceptions  may 
be  erroneous,  but  they  nevertheless  constitute  the  very 
reality  of  life  for  the  mind  that  gives  form  to  them. 
No  other  life  than  the  life  we  lead  in  our  own  mind 
is  possible;  and  hence  the  advance  of  the  whole  race 
depends  on  substituting  the  ideas  of  good,  of  liberty, 
and  of  order  for  their  opposites.  And  this  can  be 
done  only  by  giving  some  sufficient  reason  for  accept- 
ing the  new  idea  in  place  of  the  old.  For  each  one 
of  us  our  beliefs  constitute  our  facts,  and  these  be- 
liefs can  be  changed  only  by  discovering  some  ground 
for  a  different  belief. 

This  is  briefly  the  rationale  of  the  maxim  that  "as 
a  man  thinks  so  he  is" ;  and  from  the  working  of  this 
principle  all  the  issues  of  life  proceed.  Now  man's 
first  perception  of  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  in  rela- 
tion to  his  own  conduct  is  that  the  result  always  par- 
takes of  the  quality  of  the  cause;  and  since  his  argu- 
ment is  drawn  from  external  observation  only,  he 
regards  external  acts  as  the  only  causes  he  can  effec- 
tively set  in  operation.  Hence  when  he  attains  suffi- 


The  Hidden  Power  35 

cient  moral  enlightenment  to  realise  that  many  of  his 
acts  have  been  such  as  to  merit  retribution  he  fears 
retribution  as  their  proper  result.  Then  by  reason  of 
the  law  that  "thoughts  are  things,"  the  evils  which  he 
fears  take  form  and  plunge  him  into  adverse  circum- 
stances, which  again  prompt  him  into  further  wrong 
acts,  and  from  these  come  a  fresh  crop  of  fears  which 
in  their  turn  become  externalised  into  fresh  evils,  and 
thus  arises  a  circulus  from  which  there  is  no  escape 
so  long  as  the  man  recognises  nothing  but  his  external 
acts  as  a  causative  power  in  the  world  of  his  surround- 
ings. 

This  is  the  Law  of  Works,  the  Circle  of  Karma, 
$he  Wheel  of  Fate,  from  which  there  appears  to  be  no 
escape,  because  the  complete  fulfilment  of  the  law  of 
our  moral  nature  to-day  is  only  sufficient  for  to-day 
and  leaves  no  surplus  to  compensate  the  failure  of 
yesterday.  This  is  the  necessary  law  of  things  as  they 
appear  from  external  observation  only;  and,  so  long 
as  this  conception  remains,  the  law  of  each  man's  sub- 
jective consciousness  makes  it  a  reality  for  him.  What 
is  needed,  therefore,  is  to  establish  the  conception  that 
external  acts  are  NOT  the  only  causative  power,  but 
that  there  is  another  law  of  causation,  namely,  that 
of  pufe  Thought.  This  is  the  Law  of  Faith,  the  Law 
of  Liberty;  for  it  introduces-  us  to  a  power  which  is 
able  to  inaugurate  a  new  sequence  of  causation  not 
related  to  any  past  actions. 

But  this  change  of  mental  attitude  cannot  be  brought 


36         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

about  till  we  have  laid  hold  of  some  fact  which  is  suffi- 
cient to  afford  a  reason  for  the  change.  We  require 
some  solid  ground  for*  our  belief  in  this  higher  law. 
Ultimately  we  find  this  ground  in  the  great  Truth  of 
the  eternal  relation  between  spirit  in  the  universal  and 
in  the  particular.  When  we  realise  that  substantially 
there  is  nothing  else  but  spirit,  and  that  we  ourselves 
are  reproductions  in  individuality  of  the  Intelligence 
and  Love  which  rule  the  universe,  we  have  reached  the 
firm  standing  ground  where  we  find  that  we  can  send 
forth  our  Thought  to  produce  any  effect  we  will.  We 
have  passed  beyond  the  idea  of  two  opposites  requir- 
ing reconciliation,  into  that  of  a  duality  in  which  there 
is  no  other  opposition  than  that  of  the  inner  and  the 
outer  of  the  same  unity,  the  polarity  which  is  inherent 
in  all  Being,  and  we  then  realise  that  in  virtue  of  this 
unity  our  Thought  is  possessed  of  illimitable  creative 
power,  and  that  it  is  free  to  range  where  it  will,  and 
is  by  no  means  bound  down  to  accept  as  inevitaHe 
the  consequences  which,  if  unchecked  by  renovated 
thought,  would  flow  from  our  past  actions. 

In  its  own  independent  creative  power  the  mind 
has  found  the  way  out  of  the  fatal  circle  in  which  its 
previous  ignorance  of  the  highest  law  had  imprisoned 
it.  The  Unity  of  the  Spirit  is  found  to  result  in  per- 
fect Liberty;  the  old  sequence  of  Karma  has  been  cut 
off,  and  a  new  and  higher  order  has  been  introduced. 
In  the  old  order  the  line  of  thought  received  its  quality 
from  the  quality  of  the  actions,  and  since  they  always 


Hidden  Power  37 

fell  short  of  perfection,  the  development  of  a  higher 
thought-power  from  this  root  was  impossible.  This 
is  the  order  in  which  everything  is  seen  from  without. 
It  is  an  inverted  order.  But  in  the  true  order  every- 
thing is  seen  from  within. 

It  is  the  thought  which  determines  the  quality  of  the 
action,  and  not  vice  versa,  and  since  thought  is  free, 
it  is  at  liberty  to  direct  itself  to  the  highest  principles, 
which  thus  spontaneously  reproduce  themselves  in  the 
outward  acts,  so  that  both  thoughts  and  actions  are 
brought  into  harmony  with  the  great  eternal  laws  and 
become  one  in  purpose  with  the  Universal  Mind.  The 
man  realises  that  he  is  no  longer  bound  by  the  conse- 
quences of  his  former  deeds,  done  in  the  time  of  his 
ignorance,  in  fact,  that  he  never  was  bound  by  them 
except  so  far  as  he  himself  gave  them  this  power  by 
false  conceptions  of  the  truth;  and  thus  recognising 
himself  for  what  he  really  is — the  expression  of  the 
Infinite  Spirit  in  individual  personality — he  finds  that 
he  is  free,  that  he  is  a  "partaker,  of  Divine  nature," 
not  losing  his  identity,  but  becoming  more  and  more 
fully  himself  with  an  ever-expanding  perfection,  fol- 
lowing out  a  line  of  evolution  whose  possibilities  are 
inexhaustible. 

But  there  is  not  in  all  men  this  knowledge.  For 
the  most  part  they  still  look  upon  God  as  an  individual 
Being  external  to  themselves,  and  what  the  more  in- 
structed man  sees  to  be  unity  of  mind  and  identity  of 
nature  appear  to  the  less  advanced  to  be  an  external 

'  1* 


38         Th£  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

reconciliation  between  opposing  personalities.  Hence 
the  whole  range  of  conceptions  which  may  be  described 
as  the  Messianic  Idea.  This  idea  is  not,  as  some  seem 
to  suppose,  a  misconception  of  the  truth  of  Being.  On 
the  contrary,  when  rightly  understood  it  will  be  found 
to  imply  the  very  widest  grasp  of  that  truth ;  and  it  is 
from  the  platform  of  this  supreme  knowledge  alone 
that  an  idea  so  comprehensive  in  its  adaptation  to  every 
class  of  mind  could  have  been  evolved.  It  is  the  trans- 
lation of  the  relations  arising  from  the  deepest  laws 
of  Being  into  terms  which  can  be  realised  even  by  the 
most  unlearned ;  a  translation  arranged  with  such  con- 
summate skill  that,  as  the  mind  grows  in  spirituality, 
every  stage  of  advance  is  met  by  a  corresponding  un- 
folding of  the  Divine  meaning;  while  yet  even  the 
crudest  apprehension  of  the  idea  implied  is  sufficient 
to  afford  the  required  basis  for  an  entire  renovation 
of  the  man's  thoughts  concerning  himself,  giving  him 
a  standing  ground  from  which  to  think  of  .himself  as 
no  longer  bound  by  the  law  of  retribution  for  past 
offences,  but  as  free  to  follow  out  the  new  law  of 
Liberty  as  a  child  of  God. 

The  man's  conception  of  the  modus  operandi  of  this 
emancipation  may  take  the  form  of  the  grossest  an- 
thropomorphism or  the  most  childish  notions  as  to  the 
satisfaction  of  the  Divine  justice  by  vicarious  substi- 
tution, but  the  working  result  will  be  the  same.  He 
has  got  what  satisfies  him  as  a  ground  for  thinking  of 
himself  in  a  perfectly  new  light;  and  since  the  states 


The  Hidden  Power  39 

of  our  subjective  consciousness  constitute  the  realities 
of  our  life,  to  afford  him  a  convincing  ground  for 
thinking  himself  free,  is  to  make  him  free. 

With  increasing  light  he  may  find  that  his  first  ex- 
planation of  the  modus  operanfli  was  inadequate;  but 
when  he  reaches  this  stage,  further  investigation  will 
show  him  that  the  great  truth  of  his  liberty  rests  upon 
a  firmer  foundation  than  the  conventional  interpre- 
tation of  traditional  dogmas,  and  that  it  has  its  roots 
in  the  great  law  of  Nature,  which  are  never  doubtful, 
and  which  can  never  be  overturned.  And  it  is  pre- 
cisely because  their  whole  action  has  its  root  in  the 
unchangeable  laws  of  Mind  that  there  exists  a  per- 
petual necessity  for  presenting  to  men  something  which 
they  can  lay  hold  of  as  a  sufficient  ground  for  that 
change  of  mental  attitude,  by  which  alone  they  can 
be  rescued  from  the  fatal  circle  which  is  figured  under 
the  symbol  of  the  Old  Serpent. 

The  hope  and  adumbration  of  such  a  new  principle 
has  formed  the  substance  of  all  religions  in  all  ages, 
however  misapprehended  by  the  ignorant  worshippers ; 
and,  whatever  our  individual  opinions  may  be  as  to  the 
historical  facts  of  Christianity,  we  shall  find  that  the 
great  figure  of  liberated  and  perfected  humanity  which 
forms  its  centre  fulfils  this  desire  of  all  nations  in  that 
it  sets  forth  their  great  ideal  of  Divine  power  inter- 
vening to  rescue  man  by  becoming  one  with  him.  This 
is  the  conception  presented  to  us,  whether  we  appre- 
hend it  in  the  most  literally  material  sense,  or  as  the 


4O        The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

ideal  presentation  of  the  deepest  philosophic  study  of 
mental  laws,  or  in  whatever  variety  of  ways  we  may 
combine  these  two  extremes.  The  ultimate  idea  im- 
pressed upon  the  mind  must  always  be  the  same :  it  is 
that  there  is  a  Divine  warrant  for  knowing  ourselves 
to  be  the  children  of  God  and  "partakers  of  the  Divine 
nature";  and  when  we  thus  realise  that  there  is  solid 
ground  for  believing  ourselves  free,  by  force  of  this 
very  belief  we  become  free. 

The  proper  outcome  of  the  study  of  the  laws  of 
spirit  which  constitute  the  inner  side  of  things  is  not 
the  gratification  of  a  mere  idle  curiosity,  nor  the  acqui- 
sition of  abnormal  powers,  but  the  attainment  of  our 
spiritual  liberty,  without  which  no  further  progress  is 
possible.  When  we  have  reached  this  goal  the  old 
things  have  passed  away  and  all  things  have  become 
new.  The  mystical  seven  days-  of  the  old  creation 
have  been  fulfilled,  and  the  first  day  of  the  new  week 
dawns  upon  us  with  its  resurrection  to  a  new  life, 
expressing  on  the  highest  plane  that  great  doctrine  of 
the  "octave"  which  the  science  of  the  ancient  temples 
traced  through  Nature,  and  which  the  science  of  the 
present  day  endorses,  though  ignorant  of  its  supreme 
significance. 

When  we  have  thus  been  made  free  by  recognising 
our  oneness  with  Infinite  Being,  we  have  reached  the 
termination  of  the  old  series  of  sequences  and  have 
gained  the  starting-point  of  the  new.  The  old  limita- 
tions are  found  never  to  have  had  any  existence  save 


The  Hidden  Power  41 

in  our  own  misapprehension  of  the  truth,  and  one  by 
one  they  fall  off  as  we  advance  into  clearer  light.  We 
find  that  the  Life- Spirit  we  seek  is  in  ourselves;  and, 
having  this  for  our  centre,  our  relation  to  all  else 
becomes  part  of  a  wondrous  living  Order  in  which 
every  part  works  in  sympathy  with  the  whole,  and 
the  whole  in  sympathy  with  every  part,  a  harmony 
wide  as  infinitude,  and  in  which  there  are  no  limita- 
tions save  those  imposed  by  the  Law  of  Love. 

I  have  endeavoured  in  this  short  series  of  articles 
to  sketch  briefly  the  principal  points  of  relation  be- 
tween Spirit  in  ourselves  and  in  our  surroundings. 
This  subject  has  employed  the  intelligence  of  man- 
kind from  grey  antiquity  to  the  present  day,  and  no 
one  thinker  can  ever  hope  to  grasp  it  in  all  its  ampli- 
tude. But  there  are  certain  broad  principles  which  we 
must  all  grasp,  however  we  may  specialise  our  studies 
in  detail,  and  these  I  have  sought  to  indicate,  with  what 
degree  of  success  the  reader  must  form  his  own  opin- 
ion. Let  him,  however,  lay  firm  hold  of  this  one 
fundamental  truth,  and  the  evolution  of  further  truth 
from  it  is  only  a  question  of  time — that  there  is  only 
One  Spirit,  however  many  the  modes  of  its  manifesta- 
tions, and  that  "the  Unity  of  the  Spirit  is  the  Bond  of 
Peace." 


II 

THE  PERVERSION  OF  TRUTH 

THERE  is  a  very  general  recognition,  which  is  growing 
day  by  day  more  and  more  widespread,  that  there  is  a 
sort  of  hidden  power  somewhere  which  it  is  within 
our  ability,  somehow  or  other,  to  use.  The  ideas  on 
this  subject  are  exceedingly  vague  with  the  generality 
of  people,  but  still  they  are  assuming  a  more  and  more 
definite  form,  and  that  which  they  appear  to  be  tak- 
ing with  the  generality  of  the  public  is  the  recognition 
of  the  power  of  suggestion.  I  suppose  none  of  us 
doubts  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  the  power  of  sug- 
gestion and  that  it  can  produce  very  great  results  in- 
deed, and  that  it  is  par  excellence  a  hidden  power;  it 
works  behind  the  scenes,  it  works  through  what  we 
know  as  the  subconscious  mind,  and  consequently  its 
activity  is  not  immediately  recognisable,  or  the  source 
from  which  it  comes.  Now  there  is  in  some  aspects, 
its  usefulness,  its  benefit,  but  in  other  aspects  there  is 
a  source  of  danger,  because  a  power  of  this  kind  is 
obviously  one  which  can  be  used  either  well  or  ill;  in 
itself  it  is  perfectly  neutral,  it  all  depends  on  the  pur- 
pose 'for  which  it  is  used,  and  the  character  of  the 
agent  who  employs  it. 

42 


The  Perversion  of  Truth  43 

This  recognition  of  the  power  of  suggestion  is  in 
many  instances  taking  a  most  undesirable  form,  and  I 
commend  to  your  notice,  in  support  of  this  observation, 
numerous  advertisements  in  certain  classes  of  maga- 
zines— many  of  you  must  have  seen  many  specimens 
of  that  kind — offering  for  a  certain  sum  of  money  to 
put  you  in  the  way  of  getting  personal  influence,  men- 
tal power,  power  of  suggestion,  as  the  advertisements 
very  unblushingly  put  it,  for  any  purpose  that  you  may 
desire.  Some  of  them  even  go  into  further  particulars, 
telling  you  the  particular  sort  of  purposes  for  which 
you  can  employ  this,  all  of  them  certainly  being  such 
uses  as  no  one  should  ever  attempt  to  make  of  it. 

Therefore,  this  recognition  of  the  power  of  sug- 
gestion, say  even  as  a  mere  money-making  power,  to 
leave  alone  other  misapplications  of  it,  is  a  feature 
which  is  taking  hold,  so  to  say,  of  certain  sections  of 
the  public  who  do  not  realise  a  higher  platform  in  these 
things.  It  is  deplorable  that  it  should  be  so,  but  it  is 
in  the  nature  of  things  unavoidable.  You  have  a  power 
which  can  be  used  affirmatively,  and  which  can  be  used 
negatively,  which  can  be  used  for  higher  purposes,  and 
can  be  used  for  lower  purposes,  and  consequently  you 
will  find  numbers  of  people  who,  as  soon  as  they  get 
hold  of  it,  will  at  once  think  only  of  the  lower  purposes, 
not  of  the  higher. 

In  support  of  what  I  say — although  this  is  by  no 
means,  I  suppose,  intended  as  a  low  application,  prob- 
ably it  is  intended  as  a  high  application,  but  I  cannot 


44         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

say  I  agree  with  it — but  to  show  you  that  I  am  talking 

from  actual  facts  I  will  read  you  a  note  which  I  have 

made  from  the  Daily  Mail,  of  the  2Oth  January,  that 

I   daresay   some  of  you  may  have   seen.     It   is   an 

article  headed  "Killing  by  Prayer,"  and  the  article 

goes  on  to  say  that  a  certain  circular  has  been  sent 

round  to  the  different  hospitals  and  other  places  where 

the  study  of  vivisection  goes  forward  to  this  effect. 

In  this  circular,  signed  with  the  letters  "M.  C,"  the 

writer  says  that  he  accidentally  heard  of  a  person  who 

was  in  the  habit  of  praying  from  time  to  time  for  the 

death  of  one  of  our  leading  vivisectors  and  that  always 

the  man  indicated  died.    That  is  what  M.  C.  heard  by 

chance  during  conversation  at  a  hotel  dinner.     Then 

thinking  over  this,  M.  C.  goes  on  to  say  that  he  (or 

she)  tried  praying  that  the  man  most  likely  to  cause 

suffering  to  innocent  subjects  by  his  experiments  might 

be  removed,  and  the  consequence  was  that  about  a 

fortnight  later  one  of  our  most  distinguished  medical 

scientists  died. 

I  do  not  know  who  the  scientist  in  question  was;  1 
daresay  some  of  you  may  be  aware  of  the  name. 
However,  that  is  what  the  Daily  Mail  tells  us,  and  it 
also  states  that  the  Anti- Vivisection  Societies  were 
unanimous  in  condemning  this  circular,  and  very  prop- 
erly so.  Now  you  see  the  sender  of  that  circular, 
whoever  he  was,  obviously  thought  he  was  doing  a 
very  good  piece  of  work.  I  myself  am  by  no  means 
any  friend  of  vivisection.  I  do  not  think  any  one  can 


The  Perversion  of  Truth  45 

have  a  real  knowledge  of  the  truth  and  remain  in 
touch  with  it,  but  I  certainly  agreed  with  the  Anti- 
Vivisection  Societies  in  condemning  such  a  circular  as 
that.  You  see  there  is  the  assumption  that  prayer,  or 
mental  power,  can-  be  used  to  remove  a  person  from 
the  stage  of  life,  and  M.  C.  claims  that  he  did  it  in 
the  case  of  this  particular  scientist. 

That  brings  back  another  parallel,  almost,  I  might 
say,  an  historical  parallel,  to  our  mind;  that  of  Dr. 
Anna  Kingsford,  taking  place  perhaps  some  forty  years 
ago*,  who*  claimed — of  course  she  was  a  very  strong 
anti-vivisectionist — that  by  thought-power  she  caused 
the  death  of  Claude  Bernard,  the  great  vivisecti'on 
scientist  of  France.  Certainly  at  the  time  that  she 
put  out  her  forces  he  did  die,  but  on  the  other  hand, 
it  has  been  remarked  that  it  was  from  that  very  date 
that  her  own  break-up  commenced,  and  never  ceased 
till  she  herself  passed  into  the  other  world.  So  you 
see  these  actions  are'  likely  to  revert  to  the  sender, 
even  if  they  are  successful. 

Now  in  these  two  cases  the  ultimate  object  was  not 
a  low  one,  it  was  one  which  was  supposed  to  be  for 
the  benefit  of  humanity  and  of  the  dumb  creation. 
But  that  does  not  justify  the  means.  The  maxim, 
"The  end  justifies  the  means,"  is  the  greatest  per- 
version of  truth,  and  still  more  so  if  this  hidden  power, 
the  power  of  suggestion,  is  used  to  injure  any  one 
for  a  more  personal  motive  than  in  these  cases  which 
I  have  cited.  The  lower  the  motive,  the  lower  the 


46         The  Hidden  Porver  and  Other  Essays 

action  becomes,  and  to  suppose  that  because  mental 
means  are  employed  they  make  any  difference  in  the 
nature  of  the  act  is  a  very  great  mistake. 

It  has  been  sometimes  my  painful  duty  to  sentence 
people  to  death  for  murder,  and  therefore  I  claim  that 
I  have  a  very  fair  knowledge  of  what  differentiates 
murder  from  those  cases  in  which  life  is  taken  which 
do  not  amount  to  murder;  and  speaking  from  the 
judicial  experience  of  a  great  many  years,  and  the 
trial  of  a  large  number  of  cases  which  have  involved 
the  question  whether  the  death  penalty  should  be 
passed  or  not,  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  to 
kill  by  mental  means  is  just  as  much  murder  as  to  kill 
by  poison  or  the  dagger.  Speaking  judicially,  I  should 
have  not  the  least  hesitation  in  hanging  any  one  who 
committed  murder  by  means  of  mental  suggestion. 
Psychological  crime,  remember,  is  crime  just  the  same ; 
possibly  it  is  more  deeply  dyed  crime,  because  of  the 
greater  knowledge  which  must  go  along  with  it.  I  say 
that  the  psychological  criminal  is  worse  than  the  ordi- 
nary criminal. 

One  of  the  teachings  of  the  Master  is  on  this  very 
point.  I  refer  you  to  the  miracle  of  the  fig  tree.  You 
know  that  he  exhibited  his  power  of  killing  not  a  per- 
son, not  even  an  animal,  but  a  tree.  And  when  the 
disciples  said  to  him,  see  how  this  tree  which  you 
cursed  has  withered  away,  he  replied,  Well,  you  can 
do  exactly  the  same  thing,  and  goes  on  to  say,  nothing 
shall  be  impossible  to  you.  Therefore  if  you  can  kill 


The  Perversion  of  Truth  47 

fig  trees,  you  can  kill  people,  but,  "forgive,  if  you 
have  aught  against  any,"  that  your  heavenly  Father 
may  forgive  you. 

He  says  in  effect :  ncrvv  you  have  seen  that  this  hid- 
den power  can  be  used  to  the  destruction  of  life,  at 
your  peril  use  it  otherwise  than  as  a  Divine  power. 
Use  it  with  prayer  to  God  and  with  forgiveness  of  all 
against  whom  you  have  any  sort  o*f  grudge  or  ill- 
feeling,  and  if  its  use  is  always  prefaced  in  this  way, 
according  to  the  Master's  directions,  then  nobody  can 
use  it  to  injure  another  either  in  mind,  body  or  estate. 

Perhaps  spme  of  you  may  be  inclined  to  smile  if  I 
use  the  word  "sorcery,"  but  at  the  present  day,  under 
one  name  or  another,  scientific  or  semi-scientific,  it  is 
nothing  but  the  old-world  sorcery  which  is  trying  to 
find  its  way  among  us  as  the  hidden  power.  Sorcery 
is  the  inverted  use  of  spiritual  power.  That  is  the 
definition  of  it,  and  I  speak  upon  authority.  I  refer 
you  to  the  Bible  where  you  will  find  sorcery  takes  a 
prominent  place  among  the  list  of  those  things  which 
exclude  from  the  heavenly  Jerusalem;  the  heavenly 
Jerusalem  not  being  a  town  or  a  city  in  this  place  or 
that  place,  but  the  perfected  state  of  man.  Therefore, 
use  sorcery,  and  you  cannot  reach  that  heavenly  state. 

It  is  on  this  account  that  we  find  in  Revelations  that 
wonderful  description  of  two  symbolical  women ;  they 
represent  two  modes  of  the  individual  soul.  Of  course 
they  go  further,  they  indicate  national  things,  race 
evolution  and  so  on.  Why?  Because  all  national 


48         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

movements,  all  race  evolutions,  have  their  root  in  the 
development  of  the  individual.  A  nation  or  a  race  is 
only  a  collection  of  individuals,  and  therefore  if  a 
principle  once  spreads  from  one  individual  to  another, 
it  spreads  to  the  nation,  it  spreads  to  the  race.  So, 
therefore,  these  two  symbolical  women  represent  pri- 
marily two  modes  of  soul,  two  modes  of  thought. 
You  know  perfectly  well  the  description  of  the  two 
women.  One,  the  woman  clothed  with  the  sun,  stand- 
ing with  the  moon  under  her  feet,  and  with  a  diadem 
of  stars  about  her  head;  the  other  seated  upon  an 
earthly  throne,  holding  a  golden  cup,  and  the  cup  is 
full  of  abominations.  Those  are  the  two  women, 
and  we  know  that  one  of  them  is  called  in  the  Scrip- 
ture, Babylon,  and  we  know  which  one  that  is.  One 
of  the  marks  of  this  woman — mind  you  that  means 
the  class  of  individuality — is  the  mark  of  sorcery,  the 
mark  of  the  inverted  use  of  spiritual  and  mental 
powers. 

But  what  is  the  end  of  it?  The  end  is  that  this 
Babylon  becomes  the  habitation  of  devils,  the  hold — 
or,  as  the  original  Greek  has  it,  the  prison  of  evil,  an 
unclean*  spirit,  the  cage  of  every  unclean  bird.  That 
is  the  development  which  takes  place  in  each  indi- 
vidual who  sets  out  to  misuse  this  mental  power.  The 
misuse  may  have  a  very  small  beginning,  it  may  be 
such  as  is  taught  in  a  certain  school,  which  I  am  told 
exists  in  London,  where  shop  assistants  are  trained 
in  the  use  of  magnetic  power,  in  order  to  decoy  or 


The  Perversion  of  Truth  49 

compel  unknowing  purchasers  into  buying  what  they 
do  not  want.  I  am  told  there  is  such  a  school ;  I  can- 
not quote  you  my  authority.  That  is  a  trifling  matter. 
I  go  into  a  shop  and  spend  two  or  three  shillings  in 
buying  something  which,  when  I  get  home,  I  find 
absolutely  useless,  and  I  say,  "How  in  the  name  of 
fortune  did  I  come  to  buy  this  rubbish?"  Well,  I 
must  have  been  hypnotised  into  it.  It  does  not  make 
much  difference  to  me,  but  it  makes  a  great  deal  of 
difference  to  the  young  man  or  young  woman  who  has 
hypnotised  me,  because  it  is  the  first  step  on  the  down- 
ward path.  It  may  be  only  a  matter  of  sixpence,  but 
it  leads  on  step  by  step,  and  unless  that  path  is  retraced, 
the  final  end  is  that  of  Babylon.  Therefore  it  is  that 
St.  John  says,  "I  heard  a  voice  from  Heaven  saying, 
'Come  forth,  my  people,  out  of  her'  " — and  that  is  out 
of  Babylon — "come  forth,  my  people,  out  of  her" — 
that  is  out  of  this  inverted  mode  of  using  spiritual 
power — "come  forth,  my  people,  out  of  her,  that  ye 
have  no  fellowship  with  her  sins  and  that  ye  shall 
receive  not  of  her  plague."  Therefore,  against  this 
inverted  use  of  the  hidden  power  I  warn  every  one 
from  the  first  day  when  he  begins  to  realise  that  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  mental  or  spiritual  power  which  can 
be  exercised  upon  other  persons. 

Are  we  then  on  this  account  to  go  continually  in 
terror  of  suffering  from  malicious  magnetism,  fearing 
that  some  enemy  here,  or  some  enemy  there,  is  turning 
on  this  hidden  power  against  us?  If  so,  we  should  go 


50         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

in  trepidation  continually.  No,  I  do  not  think  there 
is  the  least  reason  for  us  to  go  in  fear  in  this  way. 
To  begin  with  there  are  comparatively  few  who  know 
the  law  of  suggestion  sufficiently  well  to  use  it  either 
affirmatively  or  negatively,  and  of  those  who  do  know 
it  sufficiently  to  make  use  of  it,  I  am  convinced  that 
the  majority  would  wish  only  to  use  it  in  all  kindness, 
and  for  the  benefit  of  the  person  concerned.  That,  I 
am  confident,  is  the  attitude  of  nine-tenths,  or  I  might 
perhaps  say  ninety-nine  hundredths,  of  the  students  of 
this  subject.  They  wish  to  do  well,  and  look  upon 
their  use  of  mental  power  as  an  additional  means  of 
doing  good.  But  after  all,  human  nature  is  human 
nature,  and  there  remains  a  small  minority  who  are 
both  able  and  willing  to  use  this  hidden  power  injuri- 
ously for  their  own  purposes. 

Now  how  are  we  to  deal  with  this  minority?  The 
answer  is  simple.  Just  see  them  in  their  true  light,  see 
them  for  what  they  really  are,  that,  is  to  say,  persons 
who  are  ignorant  of  the  real  spiritual  power.  They 
think  they  have  it,  and  they  have  not.  That  is  what 
it  is.  See  them  in  their  true  light  and  their  power 
will  fall  away  from  them.  The  real  and  ultimate 
power  is  that  of  the  affirmative;  the  negative  is  de- 
structive, the  affirmative  is  constructive.  So  this  nega- 
tive use  of  the  hidden  power  is  to  be  destroyed  by  the 
use  of  the  affirmative,  the  constructive  power.  The 
affirmative  destroys  the  negative  always  in  one  way, 
and  that  is  not  by  attacking  it,  not  by  running  at  it 


The  Perversion  of  Truth  51 

like  a  bull  in  a  china  shop;  but  by  building  up  life. 
It  is  always  a  building  power — it  is  building,  building, 
building  life  and  more  life,  and  when  that  life  comes 
in,  the  negative  of  necessity  goes  out. 

The  ultimate  affirmative  position  is  that  of  conscious 
union  with  the  source  of  life.  Realise  this,  and  you 
need  not  trouble  yourself  about  any  action  of  the  nega- 
tive whatever.  Seek  conscious  union  with  the  ulti- 
mate, the  first  cause,  that  which  is  the  starting  point 
of  all  things,  whether  in  the  universe  or  in  yourself 
as  the  individual.  That  starting  point  is  always  pres- 
ent; it  is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day  and  forever,  and 
you  are  the  world  and  the  universe  in  miniature,  and 
it  is  always  there  working  in  you  if  you  will  recognise 
it.  Remember  the  reciprocity  between  yourself  and 
this  truly  hidden  power.  The  power  of  suggestion  is 
a  hidden  power,  but  the  power  which  creates  all  things 
is  the  hidden  power  which  is  at  the  back  of  all  things. 
Now  realise  that  it  is  in  yourselves  and  you  need  trou- 
ble about  the  negative  no  longer.  This  is  the  Bible 
teaching  regarding  Christ;  and  that  teaching  is  to 
bring  about  this  conscious  personal  union  with  the 
Divine  All-creating  Spirit  as  a  present  living  power 
to  be  used  day  by  day. 

The  Bible  tells  us  there  is  such  a  thing  as  the  mystery 
of  iniquity,  that  is  to  say,  the  mystery  of  the  spiritual 
power  used  invertedly,  used  from  the  diabolical  stand- 
point; and  when  the  Bible  speaks  of  the  mystery  of 
iniquity,  it  means  what  it  says.  It  tells  us  there  are 


52         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

powers  and  principalities  in  the  invisible  world  which 
are  using  precisely  these  same  methods  on  an  enormous 
scale ;  because,  remember  one  thing,  there  is  never  any 
departure  in  any  part  of  the  Universe  from  the  uni- 
versal rule  of  law;  what  is  law  upon  earth  is  law  in 
Heaven,  law  in  Hell,  law  in  the  invisible  and  law  in 
the  visible;  that  never  alters.  What  is  done  by  any 
spiritual  power,  whether  it  is  a  spiritual  power  of  evil 
or  of  good,  is  done  through  the  mental  constitution 
which  you  have.  No  power  alters  the  law  of  your  own 
mind,  but  a  power  which  knows  the  law  of  your  mind 
can  use  it. 

Therefore,  it  is  so  essential  that  you  should  know 
the  law  of  your  own  mind  and  realise  its  continual 
amenability  to  suggestion.  That  being  so,  the  great 
thing  is  to  get  a  standard  for  fundamental,  unchange- 
able, and  sufficient  suggestion  to  which  you  can  always 
turn,  and  which  is  automatically  impressed  upon  your 
subconscious  mind  so  deeply  that  no  counter-sugges- 
tion can  ever  take  its  place ;  and  that  is  the  mystery  of 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God.  That  is  why  we  are  told  of 
the  mystery  of  Christ,  the  mystery  of  godliness  in 
opposition  to  the  mystery  of  iniquity;  it  is  because 
both  the  mystery  of  the  Divine  and  the  mystery  of 
the  diabolical  are  seeking  to  work  through  you,  and 
they  can  only  work  through  you  by  the  law  of  your 
own  mental  constitution,  that  is  to  say,  by  the  law  of 
subconscious  mind  acting  and  re-acting  upon  your 


The  Perversion  of  Truth  53 

conscious  mind  and  upon  your  body,  and  so  upon  your 
circumstances. 

The  mystery  of  Christ  is  no  mere  ecclesiastical  fic- 
tion. People  have  distorted  it,  and  made  it  not  clear, 
by  trying  to  explain  what  at  that  time  and  in  those 
days  was  not  properly  known,  by  trying  to  explain 
what  they  did  not  know;  because  what  is  commonly 
now  known  regarding  the  laws  of  mind  was  unknown 
then.  But  now  this  light  has  come  we  begin  to  see 
that  the  Bible  teaching  regarding  Christ  has  a  great 
and  a  deep  meaning,  and  it  is  for  these  reasons  St.  Paul 
said  to  the  Corinthians :  "Little  children  of  whom  I 
travail  again  in  birth,  until  Christ  be  formed  in  you." 
That  is  why  he  speaks  of  "Christ  in  you  the  hope  of 
glory,"  that  is  to  say,  the  Christ  conception,  the  realisa- 
tion of  the  Christ  principle  as  exhibited  in  the  Christ 
person,  brings  you  in  touch  with  the  personal  element 
in  the  Universal  Spirit,  the  divine  creative,  first  mov- 
ing Spirit  of  the  Universe. 

Then  you  see  that  realising  this  as  your  fundamental 
fact,  it  is  continually  impressed  upon  your  subcon- 
scious mind,  even  when  you  are  not  thinking  of  it, 
because  that  is  the  action  of  the  subconscious  mind  to 
take  in  and  reason  and  argue  in  its  own  deductive  way 
upon  things  of  which  you  are  not  at  the  moment  con- 
sciously thinking.  Therefore  it  is  that  the  realisation 
of  that  great  promise  of  redemption,  which  is  the  back- 
bone of  the  Bible  from  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  to 


54         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

the  last  chapter  of  Revelations,  is  according  to  a  scien- 
tific law.  It  is  not  a  hocus-pocus  business,  it  is  not  a 
thing  which  has  been  arranged  this  way  and  might 
just  as  well  have  been  arranged  in  some  other;  it  is 
not  so  because  some  arbitrary  Authority  has  com- 
manded it,  and  the  Authority  might  just  as  well  have 
commanded  it  some  other  way. 

No,  it  is  so  because  the  more  you  examine  it,  the 
more  you  will  find  that  it  is  absolutely  scientific;  it  is 
based  upon  the  natural  constitution  of  the  human  mind. 
And  it  is  therefore  that  "Christ,"  as  set  forth  in  the 
Bible — whether  in  the  Old  Testament  symbology,  or 
in  the  New  Testament  personality — "is  the  fulfilling  of 
the  law,"  in  the  sense  of  specialising  in  the  highest  de- 
gree that  which  is  common  to  all  humanity.  As  we 
realise  this  more  and  more,  and  specialise  it  more  and 
more,  so  we  shall  rise  to  higher  and  higher  intercourse 
and  more  and  more  consciousness  of  reciprocal  iden- 
tity, reciprocal  life  with  the  Universal  Power,  which 
will  raise  us  above  any  possibility  of  being  touched  by 
any  sort  of  malicious  suggestion. 

If  anybody  should  be,  then,  so  ill- willed  towards  us 
and  so  lamentably  ignorant  of  spiritual  truth  himself 
as  to  seek  to  exercise  the  power  of  malicious  sugges- 
tion against  us,  I  pity  the  person  who  tries  to  do  it. 
He  will  get  nothing  out  of  it,  because  he  is  firing  peas 
out  of  a  pea-shooter  against  an  iron-clad  war  vessel. 
That  is  what  it  amounts  to;  but  for  himself  it  amounts 
to  something  more.  It  is  a  true  saying  that  "Curses 


The  Perversion  of  Truth  55 

return  home  to  roost."  I  think  if  we  study  these 
things,  and  consider  that  there  is  a  reason  for  them, 
we  need  not  be  in  the  least  alarmed  about  negative 
suggestion,  or  malicious  magnetism,  of  being  brought 
under  the  power  of  other  minds,  of  being  got  over  in 
some  way,  of  being  done  out  of  our  property,  of  being 
injured  in  our  health,  or  being  hurt  in  our  circum- 
stances, and  so  on. 

Of  course  if  you  lay  yourself  open  to  that  kind  of 
thing,  you  will  get  it.  "Knock,  and  it  shall  be  opened 
unto  you."  That  is  why  the  Scripture  says,  "He  that 
breaketh  through  a  hedge,  a  serpent  shall  bite  him." 
That  is  the  serpent  that  some  of  us  know  something 
about,  that  is  our  old  enemy  Nahash.  Some  of  you, 
at  any  rate,  are  sufficiently  trained  in  the  inner  sciences 
to  know  the  serpent  Nahash.  Break  down  the  hedge, 
that  is  to  say,  the  conscious  control  of  your  own  mind, 
and  above  all  the  hedge  of  the  Divine  love  and  wisdom 
with  which  God  himself  will  surround  you  in  the  per- 
sonality of  His  Son,  break  down  this  hedge  and  of 
course  Nahash  comes  in.  But  if  you  keep  your  hedge 
— and  remember  the  old  Hebrew  tradition  always 
spoke  of  the  Divine  Law  as  "the  hedge" — if  you  keep 
your  hedge  unbroken,  nothing  can  come  in  except  by 
the  door.  Christ  said,  "I  am  the  door,  by  me  if  any 
man  enter  in,  he  shall  be  saved." 

I  have  spoken  of  the  two  great  mysteries,  the  mys- 
tery of  godliness  and  the  mystery  of  iniquity,  the 
mystery  of  Christ  and  the  mystery  of  anti-Christ. 


56         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

Now,  it  is  not  necessary,  mind  you,  that  you  should 
understand  these  mysteries  in  full  in  order  to  get  into 
your  right  position.  If  it  were  necessary  that  we 
should  fully  understand  these  mysteries,  either  to  get 
away  from  the  one  or  to  get  into  the  other,  I  think  all 
of  us  would  have  an  uncommonly  bad  chance.  I  cer- 
tainly should.  I  can  touch  only  the  fringe  of  these 
things,  but  we  can  realise  the  principle  of  the  affirma- 
tive and  the  principle  of  the  negative  which  underlies 
them  both;  one  is  the  mystery  of  light,  the  other  is 
the  mystery  of  darkness. 

I  do  not  say  do  not  study  these  mysteries;  they  are 
exactly  what  we  ought  to  study,  but  do  not  think  that 
you  remain  in  a  state  of  danger  until  you  have  com- 
pletely fathomed  the  mystery.  Not  a  bit  of  it.  You 
can  quite  get  on  the  right  side  without  understanding 
the  whole  thing,  exactly  as  you  travel  on  a  railway 
without  understanding  the  mechanism  of  the  engine 
which  takes  you  along. 

So  then  we  have  these  two  mysteries,  that  of  light 
and  that  of  darkness,  and  therefore  what  we  have  to 
do  is  to  exercise  our  will  to  receive  the  mystery  of  light, 
and  then  that  will  make  for  itself  a  centre  in  our  own 
hearts  and  beings,  and  you  will  become  conscious  of 
that  centre.  Whether  you  understand  it  or  not,  you 
will  become  conscious  of  it — and  then  from  that 
centre,  that  centre  of  light  in  yourself,  you  can  start 
everything  in  your  life,  whether  spiritual  or  temporal. 
You  do  not  have  to  go  further  back ;  you  do  not  have 


The  Perversion  of  Truth  57 

to  analyse  the  why  and  the  wherefore  of  these  things 
in  order  to  get  your  starting  point.  It  may  interest 
you  afterwards,  it  may  strengthen  you  afterwards  to 
do  so,  but  for  a  practical  starting  point  you  must  realise 
the  Divine  presence  in  yourself,  which  is  the 'son  of 
God  manifested  in  you,  that  is  the  Divine  principle  of 
personality  speaking  within  yourself. 

So  then,  having  realised  this  as  your  centre,  you 
carry  the  all-originating  affirmative  power  with  you,  all 
through  everything  that  you  do  and  everything  that 
you  are ;  day  and  night  it  will  be  there,  it  will  protect 
you,  it  will  guide  you,  it  will  help  you.  And  when  you 
want  to  do  so  you  can  consciously  apply  to  it  and  it 
will  give  you  assistance,  and  because  you  take  this  as 
your  starting  point,  it  will  manifest  itself  in  all  your 
conditions ;  because,  remember,  it  is  a  very  simple  law 
of  logic  that  whatever  you  start  with  will  manifest  it- 
self all  down  the  sequence  which  comes  from  it.  If  you 
start  with  the  colour  red  you  can  make  all  sorts  of 
modifications  and  bring  out  orange,  purple  and  brown, 
but  the  red  basis  will  show  itself  all  down  the  scale  of 
colour,  and  so  if  you  start  with  a  basis  of  blue,  blue 
will  show  itself  all  down  the  scale  of  various  colours. 

Therefore,  if  you  start  with  the  affirmative  basis, 
the  one  starting  point  of  the  Divine  spirit,  not  taking 
it  lower  down  the  stream,  but  going  to  the  fountain 
head,  that  affirmative  principle  of  life  will  flow  all 
through,  showing  its  own  quality  to  the  very  tips  of 
your  fingers  and  beyond  that  out  into  all  your  circum- 


58         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

stances.  So  that  the  divine  presence  will  be  continu- 
ously with  you,  not  as  a  consequence  of  your  joining 
this  Church  or  that,  following  this  idea,  or  that  teacher, 
but  because  you  know  the  truth  for  yourselves,  and  you 
have  realised  it  as  an  actual  living  experience  in  your 
own  mind  and  in  your  own  heart;  and  therefore  it  is 
that  this  personal  recognition  of  the  Divine  love  and 
wisdom  and  power  is  what  St.  Paul  calls  "Christ  in 
you,  the  hope  of  glory." 

Each  one  who  recognises  this,  is  one  who  answers 
the  Biblical  description  of  a  true  Israelite  indeed.  That 
word  "Israelite"  in  the  Bible  is  a  very  deeply  symbolical 
word,  and  carries  an  immense  amount  of  meaning  with 
it.  So  get  this  recognition  as  the  real  working  fact 
that  each  one  of  you  is  an  Israelite  indeed,  and  if  so, 
then  make  yourselves  perfectly  happy  with  the  ever- 
lasting statement,  which  is  as  true  now  as  it  was  on 
the  day  on  which  it  was  uttered :  "There  is  no  divina- 
tion or  enchantment  against  Israel." 

1909. 


Ill 

THE  "I  AM" 

WE  often  do  not  sufficiently  recognise  the  truth  of 
Walt  Whitman's  pithy  saying,  "I  am  not  all  contained 
between  my  hat  and  my  boots,"  and  forget  the  two- 
fold nature  of  the  "I  AM,"  that  it  is  at  once  both  the 
manifested  and  the  unmanifested,  the  universal  and  the 
individual.  By  losing  sight  of  this  truth  we  surround 
ourselves  with  limitations;  we  see  only  part  of  the 
self,  and  then  we  are  surprised  that  the  part  fails  to 
do  the  work  of  the  whole.  Factors  crop  up  on  which 
we  had  not  reckoned,  and  we  wonder  where  they  come 
from,  and  do  not  understand  that  they  necessarily  arise 
from  that  great  unity  in  which  we  are  all  included. 

It  is  the  grand  intelligence  and  livingness  of  Uni- 
versal Spirit  continually  pressing  forward  to  mani- 
festation of  itself  in  a  glorious  humanity. 

This  must  be  effected  by  each  individual's  recogni- 
tion of  his  power  to  co-operate  with  the  Supreme 
Principle  through  an  intelligent  conception  of  its  pur- 
pose and  of  the  natural  laws  by  which  that  purpose  is 
accomplished — a  recognition  which  can  proceed  only 
from  the  realisation  that  he  himself  is  none  other  than 
the  same  Universal  Principle  in  particular  mani- 
festation. 

59 


60         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

When  he  sees  this  he  sees  that  Walt  Whitman's 
saying  is  true,  and  that  his  source  of  intelligence,  power, 
and  purpose  is  in  that  Universal  Self,  which  is  his 
as  well  as  another's  just  because  it  is  universal,  and 
which  is  therefore  as  completely  and  entirely  identified 
.with  himself  as-  though  there  were  no  other  expression 
of  it  in  the  world. 

The  understanding  which  alone  gives  value  to  knowl- 
edge is  the  understanding  that,  when  we  employ  the 
formula.  "I  am,  therefore  I  can,  therefore  I  will,"  the 
"I  AM"  with  which  the  series  starts  is  a  being  who, 
so  to  speak,  has  his  head  in  heaven  and  his  feet  upon 
the  earth,  a  perfect  unity,  and  with  a  range  of  ideas 
far  transcending  the  little  ideas  which  are  limited  by  the 
requirements  of  a  day  or  an  hour.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  requirements  of  the  day  and  the  hour  are  real 
while  they  last,  and  since  the  manifested  life  can  be 
lived  only  in  the  moment  that  now  is,  whether  it  be 
to-day  or  ten  thousand  years  hence,  our  need  is  to 
harmonise  the  life  of  expression  with  the  life  of  pur- 
pose, and  by  realising  in  ourselves  the  source  of  the 
highest  purposes  to  realise  also  the  life  of  the  fullest 
expression. 

This  is  the  meaning  of  prayer.  Prayer  is  not  a 
foolish  seeking  to  change  the  mind  of  Supreme  Wis- 
dom, but  it  is  an  intelligent  seeking  to  embody  that 
wisdom  in  our  thoughts  so  as  more  and  more  perfectly 
to  express  it  in  expressing  ourselves.  Thus,  as  we 
gradually  grow  into  the  habit  of  finding  this  inspiring 


The  "I  Am"  61 

Presence  within  ourselves,  and  of  realising  its  forward 
movement  as  the  ultimate  determining  factor  in  all 
true  healthful  mental  action,  it  will  become  second 
nature  to  us  to  have  all  our  plans,  down  to  the  appar- 
ently most  trivial,  so  floating  upon  the  undercurrent 
of  this  Universal  Intelligence  that  a  great  harmony 
will  come  into  our  lives,  every  discordant  manifesta- 
tion will  disappear,  and  we  shall  find  ourselves  more 
and  more  controlling  all  things  into  the  forms  that  we 
desire. 

Why?  Because  we  have  attained  to  commanding 
the  Spirit  and  making  it  obey  us?  Certainly  not,  for 
"if  the  blind  lead  the  blind  both  shall  fall  into  the 
ditch";  but  because  we  are  companions  of  the  Spirit, 
and  by  a  continuous  and  growing  intimacy  have 
changed,  not  "the  mind  of  the  Spirit,"  but  our  own, 
and  have  learned  to  think  from  a  higher  standpoint, 
where  we  see  that  the  old-world  saying  "know  thyself* 
includes  the  knowledge  of  all  that  we  mean  when  we 
speak  of  God. 

I  AM  IS  ONE 

This  may  seem  a  very  elementary  proposition,  but  it 
is  one  of  which  we  are  too  apt  to  lose  sight.  What  does 
it  mean?  It  means  everything;  but  we  are  most  con- 
cerned with  what  it  means  in  regard  to  ourselves,  and 
to  each  of  us  personally  it  means  this.  It  means  that 
there  are  not  two  Spirits,  one  which  is  myself  and 
one  which  is  another.  It  means  that  there  is  not  some 


62         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

great  unknown  power  external  to  myself  which  may 
be  actuated  by  perfectly  different  motives  to  my  own, 
and  which  will,  therefore,  oppose  me  with  its  irresistible 
force  and  pass  over  me,  leaving  me  crushed  and  broken 
like  the  devotee  over  whom  the  car  of  Jaggarnath  has 
rolled.  It  means  that  there  is  only  one  mind,  one 
motive,  one  power — not  two  opposing  each  other — and 
that  my  conscious  mind  in  all  its  movements  is  only  the 
one  mind  expressing  itself  as  (not  merely  through) 
my  own  particular  individuality. 

There  are  not  two  I  AMS,  but  one  I  am.  Whatever, 
therefore,  I  can  conceive  the  Great  Universal  Life  Prin- 
ciple to  be,  that  I  am.  Let  us  try  fully  to  realise  what 
this  means.  Can  you  conceive  the  Great  Originating 
and  Sustaining  Life  Principle  of  the  whole  universe 
as  poor,  weak,  sordid,  miserable,  jealous,  angry, 
anxious,  uncertain,  or  in  any  other  way  limited?  We 
know  that  this  is  impossible.  Then  because  the  I  AM 
is  one  it  is  equally  untrue  of  ourselves.  Learn  first 
to  distinguish  the  true  self  that  you  are  from  the 
mental  and  physical  processes  which  it  throws  forth 
as  the  instruments  of  its  expression,  and  then  learn 
that  this  self  controls  these  instruments,  and  not  vice 
versa.  As  we  advance  in  this  knowledge  we  know  our- 
selves to  be  unlimited,  and  that,  in  the  miniature 
world,  whose  centre  we  are,  we  ourselves  are  the  very 
same  overflowing  of  joyous  livingness  that  the  Great 
Life  Spirit  is  in  the  Great  All.  The  I  AM  is  One. 


IV 

AFFIRMATIVE  POWER 

THOROUGHLY  to  realise  the  true  nature  of  affirma- 
tive power  is  to  possess  the  key  to  the  great  secret. 
We  feel  its  presence  in  all  the  innumerable  forms  of 
life  by  which  we  are  surrounded  and  we  feel  it  as  the 
life  in  ourselves;  and  at  last  some  day  the  truth  bursts 
upon  us  like  a  revelation  that  we  can  wield  this  power, 
this  life,  by  the  process  of  Thought.  And  as  soon  as 
we  see  this,  the  importance  of  regulating  our  thinking 
begins  to  dawn  upon  us.  We  ask  ourselves  what  this 
thought  process  is,  and  we  then  find  that  it  is  thinking 
affirmative  force  into  forms  which  are  the  product 
of  our  own  thought.  We  mentally  conceive  the  form 
and  then  think  life  into  it. 

This  must  always  be  the  nature  of  the  creative 
process  on  whatever  scale,  whether  on  the  grand  scale 
of  the  Universal  Cosmic  Mind  or  on  the  miniature 
scale  of  the  individual  mind;  the  difference  is  only  in 
degree  and  not  in  kind.  We  may  picture  the  mental 
machinery  by  which  this  is  done  in  the  way  that  best 
satisfies  our  intellect — and  the  satisfying  of  the  intel- 
lect on  this  point  is  a  potent  factor  in  giving  us  that 

63 


64         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

confidence  in  our  mental  action  without  which  we  can 
effect  nothing — but  the  actual  externalisation  is  the 
result  of  something  more  powerful  than  a  merely  in- 
tellectual apprehension.  It  is  the  result  of  that  inner 
mental  state  which,  for  want  of  a  better  word,  we  may 
call  our  emotional  conception  of  ourselves.  It  is  the 
"self"  which  we  feel  ourselves  to  be  which  takes  forms 
of  our  own  creating.  For  this  reason  our  thought  must 
be  so  grounded  upon  knowledge  that  we  shall  feel  the 
the  truth  of  it,  and  thus  be  able  to  produce  in  ourselves 
that  mental  attitude  of  feeling  which  corresponds  to 
the  condition  which  we  desire  to  externalise. 

We  cannot  think  into  manifestation  a  different  sort 
of  life  to  that  which  we  realise  in  ourselves.  As  Hor- 
ace says,  "Nemo  dat  quod  non  hdbet,"  we  cannot  give 
what  we  have  not  got.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  we 
can  never  cease  creating  forms  of  some  sort  by  our 
mental  activity,  thinking  life  into  them.  This  point 
must  be  very  carefully  noted.  We  cannot  sit  still  pro- 
ducing nothing:  the  mental  machinery  will  keep  on 
turning  out  work  of  some  sort,  and  it  rests  with  us 
to  determine  of  what  sort  it  shall  be.  In  our  entire 
ignorance  or  imperfect  realisation  of  this  we  create 
negative  forms  and  think  life  into  them.  We  create 
forms  of  death,  sickness,  sorrow,  trouble,  and  limita- 
tion of  all  sorts,  and  then  think  life  into  these  forms; 
with  the  result  that,  however  non-existent  in  them- 
selves, to  us  they  become  realities  and  throw  their 
shadow  across  the  path  which  would  otherwise  be 


Affirmative  Power  65 

bright  with  the  many-coloured  beauties  of  innumerable 
flowers  and  the  glory  of  the  sunshine. 

This  need  not  be.  It  is  giving  to  the  negative  an 
affirmative  force  which  does  not  belong  to  it.  Con- 
sider what  is  meant  by  the  negative.  It  is  the  absence 
of  something.  It  is  not-being,  and  is  the  absence  of  all 
that  constitutes  being.  Left  to  itself,  it  remains  in  its 
own  nothingness,  and  it  only  assumes  form  and  activity 
when  we  give  these  to  it  by  our  thought. 

Here,  then,  is  the  great  reason  for  practising  control 
over  our  thought.  It  is  the  one  and  only  instrument 
we  have  to  work  with,  but  it  is  an  instrument  which 
works  with  the  greatest  certainty,  for  limitation  if 
we  think  limitation,  for  enlargement  if  we  think  en- 
largement. Our  thought  as  feeling  is  the  magnet 
which  draws  to  us  those  conditions  which  accurately 
correspond  to  itself.  This  is  the  meaning  of  the  say- 
ing that  "thoughts  are  things."  But,  you  say,  how  can 
I  think  differently  from  the  circumstances  ?  Certainly 
you  are  not  required  to  say  that  the  circumstances  at 
the  present  moment  are  what  they  are  not;  to  say  so 
would  be  untrue;  but  what  is  wanted  is  not  to  think 
from  the  standpoint  of  circumstances  at  all.  Think 
from  that  interior  standpoint  where  there  are  no  cir- 
cumstances, and  from  whence  you  can  dictate  what 
circumstances  shall  be,  and  then  leave  the  circumstances 
to  take  care  of  themselves. 

Do  not  think  of  this,  that,  or  the  other  particular 
circumstances  of  health,  peace,  etc.,  but  of  health,  peace, 


66         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

and  prosperity  themselves.  Here  is  an  advertisement 
from  Pearson's  Weekly: — "Think  money.  Big  money- 
makers think  money."  This  is  a  perfectly  sound  state- 
ment of  the  power  of  thought,  although  it  is  only  an 
advertisement;  but  we  may  make  an  advance  beyond 
thinking  "money."  We  can  think  "Life"  in  all  its  ful- 
ness, together  with  that  perfect  harmony  of  conditions 
which  includes  all  that  we  need  of  money  and  a  thou- 
sand other  good  things  besides,  for  some  of  which 
money  stands  as  the  symbol  of  exchangeable  value, 
while  others  cannot  be  estimated  by  so  material  a 
standard. 

Therefore  think  Life,  illumination,  harmony,  pros- 
perity, happiness — think  the  things  rather  than  this 
or  that  condition  of  them.  And  then  by  the  sure 
operation  of  the  Universal  Law  these  things  will  form 
themselves  into  the  shapes  best  suited  to  your  particular 
case,  and  will  enter  your  life  as  active,  living  forces, 
which  will  never  depart  from  you  because  you  know 
them  to  be  part  and  parcel  of  your  own  being. 


SUBMISSION 

THERE  are  two  kinds  of  submission:  submission  to 
superior  force  and  submission  to  superior  truth.  The 
one  is  weakness  and  the  other  is  strength.  It  is  an 
exceedingly  important  part  of  our  training  to  learn  to 
distinguish  between  these  two,  and  the  more  so  because 
the  wrong  kind  is  extolled  by  nearly  all  schools  of 
popular  religious  teaching  at  the  present  day  as  con- 
stituting the  highest  degree  of  human  attainment.  By 
some  this  is  pressed  so  far  as  to  make  it  an  instru- 
ment of  actual  oppression,  and  with  all  it  is  a  source 
of  weakness  and  a  bar  to  progress.  We  are  forbidden 
to  question  what  are  called  the  wise  dispensations  of 
Providence  and  are  told  that  pain  and  sorrow  are  to  be 
accepted  because  they  are  the  will  of  God ;  and  there  is 
much  eloquent  speaking  and  writing  concerning  the 
beauty  of  quiet  resignation,  all  of  which  appeals  to  a 
certain  class  of  gentle  minds  who  have  not  yet  learnt 
that  gentleness  does  not  consist  in  the  absence  of 
power  but  in  the  kindly  and  beneficent  use  of  it. 

Minds  cast  in  this  mould  are  peculiarly  apt  to  be 
misled.    They  perceive  a  certain  beauty  in  the  picture 

67 


68         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

of  weakness  leaning  upon  strength,  but  they  attribute 
its  soothing  influence  to  the  wrong  element  of  the  com- 
bination. A  thoughtful  analysis  would  show  them 
that  their  feelings  consisted  of  pity  for  the  weak  figure 
and  admiration  for  the  strong  one,  and  that  the  sug- 
gestiveness  of  the  whole  arose  from  its  satisfying  the 
artistic  sense  of  balance  which  requires  a  compensa- 
tion of  this  sort.  But  which  of  the  two  figures  in  the 
picture  would  they  themselves  prefer  to  be?  Surely 
not  the  weak  one  needing  help,  but  the  strong  one 
giving  it.  By  itself  the  weak  figure  only  stirs  our  pity 
and  not  our  admiration.  Its  form  may  be  beautiful, 
but  its  very  beauty  only  serves  to  enhance  the  sense 
of  something  wanting — and  the  something  wanting  is 
strength.  The  attraction  which  the  doctrine  of  passive 
resignation  possesses  for  certain  minds  is  based  upon 
an  appeal  to  sentiment,  which  is  accepted  without  any 
suspicion  that  the  sentiment  appealed  to  is  a  false  one. 
Now  the  healthful  influence  of  the  movement  known 
as  "The  Higher  Thought"  consists  precisely  in  this — 
that  it  sets  itself  rigorously  to  combat  this  debilitating 
doctrine  of  submission.  It  can  see  as  well  as  others  the 
beauty  of  weakness  leaning  upon  strength ;  but  it  sees 
that  the  real  source  of  the  beauty  lies  in  the  strong 
element  of  the  combination.  The  true  beauty  con- 
sists in  the  power  to  confer  strength,  and  this  power 
is  not  to  be  acquired  by  submission,  but  by  the  exactly 
opposite  method  of  continually  asserting  our  determi- 
nation not  to  submit. 


Submission  69 

Of  course,  if  we  take  it  for  granted  that  all  the  sor- 
row, sickness,  pain,  trouble,  and  other  adversity  in 
the  world  is  the  expression  of  the  will  of  God,  then 
doubtless  we  must  resign  ourselves  to  the  inevitable 
with  all  the  submission  we  can  command,  and  comfort 
ourselves  with  the  vague  hope  that  somehow  in  some 
far-off  future  we  shall  find  that 

"Good  is  the  final  goal  of  ill," 

though  even  this  vague  hope  is  a  protest  against  the 
very  submission  we  are  endeavouring  to  exercise.  But 
to  make  the  assumption  that  the  evil  of  life  is  the  will 
of  God  is  to  assume  what  a  careful  and  intelligent 
study  of  the  laws  of  the  universe,  both  mental  and 
physical,  will  show  us  is  not  the  truth;  and  if  we 
turn  to  that  Book  which  contains  the  fullest  delineation 
of  these  universal  laws,  we  shall  find  nothing  taught 
more  clearly  than  that  submission  to  the  evils  of  life 
is  not  submission  to  the  will  of  God.  We  are  told 
that  Christ  was  manifested  for  this  end,  that  he  should 
destroy  him  that  hath  the  power  of  death — that  is,  the 
devil.  Now  death  is  the  very  culmination  of  the 
Negative.  It  is  the  entire  absence  of  all  that  makes 
Life,  and  whatever  goes  to  diminish  the  living  quality 
of  Life  reproduces,  in  its  degree,  the  distinctive  quality 
of  this  supreme  exhibition  of  the  Negative.  Everything 
that  tends  to  detract  from  the  fulness  of  life  has  in  it 
this  deathful  quality. 

In  that  completely  renovated  life,  which  is  figured 


70         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

under  the  emblem  of  the  New  Jerusalem,  we  are  told 
that  sorrow  and  sighing  shall  flee  away,  and  that  the 
inhabitant  shall  not  say,  I  am  sick.  Nothing  that  ob- 
scures life,  or  restricts  it,  can  proceed  from  the  same 
source  as  the  Power  which  gives  light  to  them  that  sit 
in  darkness,  and  deliverance  to  them  that  are  bound. 
Negation  can  never  be  Affirmation;  and  the  error  we 
have  always  to  guard  against  is  that  of  attributing  posi- 
tive power  to  the  Negative.  If  we  once  grasp  the  truth 
that  God  is  life,  and  that  life  in  every  mode  of  ex- 
pression can  never  be  anything  else  than  Affirmative, 
then  it  must  become  clear  to  us  that  nothing  which  is 
of  the  opposite  tendency  can  be  according  to  the  will 
of  God.  For  God  (the  good)  to  will  any  of  the  "evil" 
that  is  in  the  world  would  be  for  Life  to  act  with  the 
purpose  of  diminishing  itself,  which  is  a  contradiction 
in  terms  to  the  very  idea  of  Life.  God  is  Life,  and 
Life  is,  by  its  very  nature,  Affirmative.  The  submis- 
sion we  have  hitherto  made  has  been  to  our  own  weak- 
ness, ignorance,  and  fear,  and  not  to  the  supreme  good. 
But  is  no  such  thing  as  submission,  then,  required 
of  us  under  any  circumstances?  Are  we  always  to 
have  our  own  way  in  everything  ?  Assuredly  the  whole 
secret  of  our  progress  to  liberty  is  involved  in  acquiring 
the  habit  of  submission ;  but  it  is  submission  to  superior 
Truth,  and  not  to  superior  force.  It  sometimes  hap- 
pens that,  when  we  attain  a  higher  Truth,  we  find  that 
its  reception  requires  us  to  re-arrange  the  truths  which 
we  possessed  before:  not,  indeed,  to  lay  any  of  them 


Submission  71 

aside,  for  Truth  once  recognised  cannot  be  again  put 
out  of  sight,  but  to  recognise  a  different  relative  pro- 
portion between  them  from  that  which  we  had  seen 
previously.  Then  there  conies  a  submitting  of  what 
has  hitherto  been  our  highest  truth  to  one  which  we 
recognise  as  still  higher,  a  process  not  always  easy  of 
attainment,  but  which  must  be  gone  through  if  our 
spiritual  development  is  not  to  be  arrested.  The  lesser 
degree  of  life  must  be  swallowed  up  in  the  greater; 
and  for  this  purpose  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  learn  that 
the  smaller  degree  was  only  a  partial  and  limited  as- 
pect of  that  which  is  more  universal,  stronger,  and  of 
a  larger  build  every  way. 

Now,  in  going  through  the  processes  of  spiritual 
growth,  there  is  ample  scope  for  that  training  in  self- 
knowledge  and  self-control  which  is  commonly  under- 
stood by  the  word  "submission."  But  the  character  of 
the  act  is  materially  altered.  It  is  no  longer  a  half- 
despairing  resignation  to  a  superior  force  external 
to  ourselves,  which  we  can  only  vaguely  hope  is  acting 
kindly  and  wisely,  but  it  is  an  intelligent  recognition  of 
the  true  nature  of  our  own  interior  forces  and  of  the 
laws  by  which  a  robust  spiritual  constitution  is  to  be 
developed;  and  the  submission  is  no  longer  to  limita- 
tions which  drain  life  of  its  livingness,  and  against 
which  we  instinctively  rebel,  but  to  the  law  of  our 
own  evolution  which  manifests  itself  in  continually 
increasing  degrees  of  life  and  strength. 

The  submission  which  we  recognise  is  the  price  that 


72         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

has  to  be  paid  for  increase  in  any  direction.  Even  in 
the  Money  Market  we  must  invest  before  we  can 
realise  profits.  It  is  a  universal  rule  that  Nature 
obeys  us  exactly  in  proportion  as  we  first  obey  Nature ; 
and  this  is  as  true  in  regard  to  spiritual  science  as  to 
physical.  The  only  question  is  whether  we  will  yield 
an  ignorant  submission  to  the  principle  of  Death,  or  a 
joyous  and  intelligent  obedience  to  the  principle  of 
Life. 

If  we  have  clearly  grasped  the  fact  of  our  identity 
with  Universal  Spirit,  we  shall  find  that,  in  the  right 
direction,  there  is  really  no  such  thing  as  submission. 
Submission  is  to  the  power  of  another — a  man  cannot 
be  said  to  submit  to  himself.  When  the  "I  AM"  in  us 
recognises  a  greater  degree  of  I  AM-ness  (if  I  may 
coin  the  word)  than  it  has  hitherto  attained,  then,  by 
the  very  force  of  this  recognition,  it  becomes  what  it 
sees,  and  therefore  naturally  puts  off  from  itself  what- 
ever would  limit  its  expression  of  its  own  complete- 
ness. 

But  this  is  a  natural  process  of  growth,  and  not  an 
unnatural  act  of  submission;  it  is  not  the  pouring-out 
of  ourselves  in  weakness,  but  the  gathering  of  ourselves 
together  in  increasing  strength.  There  is  no  weakness 
in  Spirit,  it  is  all  strength;  and  we  must  therefore  al- 
ways be  watchful  against  the  insidious  approaches  of 
the  Negative  which  would  invert  the  true  position. 
The  Negative  always  points  to  some  external  source 
of  strength.  Its  formula  is  "I  AM  NOT."  It  always 


Submission  73 

seeks  to  fix  a  gulf  between  us  and  the  Infinite  Suffi- 
ciency. It  would  always  have  us  believe  that  that 
sufficiency  is  not  our  own,  but  that  by  an  act  of  un- 
certain favour  we  may  have  occasional  spoonfuls  of  it 
doled  out  to  us.  Christ's  teaching  is  different.  We  do 
not  need  to  come  with  our  pitcher  to  the  well  to  draw 
water,  like  the  woman  of  Samaria,  but  we  have  in 
ourselves  an  inexhaustible  supply  of  the  living  water 
springing  up  into  everlasting  life. 

Let  us  then  inscribe  "No  Surrender"  in  bold  char- 
acters upon  our  banner,  and  advance  undaunted  to 
claim  our  rightful  heritage  of  liberty  and  life. 


VI 

COMPLETENESS 

A  POINT  on  which  students  of  mental  science  often  fail 
to  lay  sufficient  stress  is  the  completeness  of  man — not 
a  completeness  to  be  attained  hereafter,  but  here  and 
now.  We  have  been  so  accustomed  to  have  the  im- 
perfection of  man  drummed  into  us  in  books,  sermons, 
and  hymns,  and  above  all  in  a  mistaken  interpretation 
of  the  Bible,  that  at  first  the  idea  of  his  completeness 
altogether  staggers  us.  Yet  until  we  see  this  we  must 
remain  shut  out  from  the  highest  and  best  that  mental 
science  has  to  offer,  from  a  thorough  understanding 
of  its  philosophy,  and  from  its  greatest  practical 
achievements. 

To  do  any  work  successfully  you  must  believe  your- 
self to  be  a  whole  man  in  respect  of  it.  The  completed 
work  is  the  outward  image  of  a  corresponding  com- 
pleteness in  yourself.  And  if  this  is  true  in  respect 
of  one  work  it  is  true  of  all;  the  difference  in  the  im- 
portance of  the  work  does  not  matter;  we  cannot 
successfully  attempt  any  work  until,  for  some  reason 
or  other,  we  believe  ourselves  able  to  accomplish  it; 
in  other  words,  until  we  believe  that  none  of  the  con- 

74 


Completeness  75 

ditions  for  its  completion  is  wanting  in  us,  and  that 
we  are  therefore  complete  in  respect  of  it.  Our  recog- 
nition of  our  completeness  is  thus  the  measure  of  what 
we  are  able  to  do,  and  hence  the  great  importance  of 
knowing  the  fact  of  our  own  completeness. 

But,  it  may  be  asked,  do  we  not  see  imperfection 
all  around  ?  Is  there  not  sorrow,  sickness,  and  trouble  ? 
Yes;  but  why?  Just  for  the  very  reason  that  we  do 
not  realise  our  completeness.  If  we  realised  that  in  its 
fulness  these  things  would  not  be;  and  in  the  degree 
in  which  we  come  to  realise  it  we  shall  find  them 
steadily  diminish.  Now  if  we  really  grasp  the  two 
fundamental  truths  that  Spirit  is  Life  pure  and  simple, 
and  that  external  things  are  the  result  of  interior  forces, 
then  it  ought  not  to  be  difficult  to  see  why  we  should 
be  complete;  for  to  suppose  otherwise  is  to  suppose 
the  reactive  power  of  the  universe  to  be  either  unable 
or  unwilling  to  produce  the  complete  expression  of 
its  own  intention  in  the  creation  of  man. 

That  it  should  be  unable  to  do  so  would  be  to  depose 
it  from  its  place  as  the  creative  principle,  and  that  it 
should  be  unwilling  to  fulfil  its  own  intention  is  a  con- 
tradiction in  terms;  so  that  on  either  supposition  we 
come  to  a  reductio  ad  absurdum.  In  forming  man 
the  creative  principle  therefore  must  have  produced  a 
perfect  work,  and  our  conception  of  ourselves  as  im- 
perfect can  only  be  the  result  of  our  own  ignorance  of 
what  we  really  are;  and  our  advance,  therefore,  does 
not  consist  in  having  something  new  added  to  us,  but 


76         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

in  learning  to  bring  into  action  powers  which  already 
exist  in  us,  but  which  we  have  never  tried  to  use,  and 
therefore  have  not  developed,  simply  because  we  have 
always  taken  it  for  granted  that  we  are  by  nature  de- 
fective in  some  of  the  most  important  faculties  neces- 
sary to  fit  us  to  our  environment. 

If  we  wish  to  attain  to  these  great  powers,  the  ques- 
tion is,  where  are  we  to  seek  them?  And  the  answer 
is  in  ourselves.  That  is  the  great  secret.  We  are  not 
to  go  outside  ourselves  to  look  for  power.  As  soon  as 
we  do  so  we  find,  not  power,  but  weakness.  To  seek 
strength  from  any  outside  source  is  to  make  affirmation 
of  our  weakness,  and  all  know  what  the  natural  result 
of  such  an  affirmation  must  be. 

We  are  complete  in  ourselves;  and  the  reason  why 
we  fail  to  realise  this  is  that  we  do  not  understand  how 
far  the  "self"  of  ourselves  extends.  We  know  that 
the  whole  of  anything  consists  of  all  its  parts  and  not 
only  of  some  of  them ;  yet  this  is  just  what  we  do  not 
seem  to  know  about  ourselves.  We  say  rightly  that 
every  person  is  a  concentration  of  the  Universal  Spirit 
into  individual  consciousness;  but  if  so,  then  each  in- 
dividual consciousness  must  find  the  Universal  Spirit 
to  be  the  infinite  expression  of  itself.  It  is  this  part  of 
the  "Self"  that  we  so  often  leave  out  in  our  estimate 
of  what  we  are;  and  consequently  we  look  upon  our- 
selves as  crawling  pygmies  when  we  might  think  of 
ourselves  as  archangels.  We  try  to  work  with  the 
mere  shadows  of  ourselves  instead  of  with  the  glorious 


Completeness  77 

substance,  and  then  wonder  at  our  failures.  If  we 
only  understood  that  our  "better  half"  is  the  whole 
infinite  of  Spirit — that  which  creates  and  sustains  the 
universe — then  we  should  know  how  complete  our 
completeness  is. 

As  we  approach  this  conception,  our  completeness 
becomes  a  reality  to  us,  and  we  find  that  we  need  not 
go  outside  ourselves  for  anything.  We  have  only  to 
draw  on  that  part  of  ourselves  which  is  infinite  to 
carry  out  any  intention  we  may  form  in  our  individual 
consciousness ;  for  there  is  no  barrier  between  the  two 
parts,  otherwise  they  would  not  be  a  whole.  Each 
belongs  perfectly  to  the  other,  and  the  two  are  one. 
There  is  no  antagonism  between  them,  for  the  Infinite 
Life  can  have  no  interest  against  its  individualisation 
of  itself.  If  there  is  any  feeling  of  tension  it  proceeds 
from  our  not  fully  realising  this  conception  of  our 
own  wholeness;  we  are  placing  a  barrier  somewhere, 
when  in  truth  there  is  none ;  and  the  tension  will  con- 
tinue until  we  find  out  where  and  how  we  are  setting 
up  this  barrier  and  remove  it. 

This  feeling  of  tension  is  the  feeling  that  we  are 
not  using  our  Whole  Being.  We  are  trying  to  make 
half  do  the  work  of  the  whole ;  but  we  cannot  rid  our- 
selves of  our  wholeness,  and  therefore  the  whole  pro- 
tests against  our  attempts  to  set  one  half  against  the 
other.  But  when  we  realise  that  our  concentration 
out  of  the  Infinite  also  implies  our  expansion  into  it, 
we  shall  see  that  our  whole  "self"  includes  both  the 


78        The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

concentration  and  the  expansion;  and  seeing  this  first 
intellectually  we  shall  gradually  learn  to  use  our  knowl- 
edge practically  and  bring  our  whole  man  to  bear  upon 
whatever  we  take  in  hand.  We  shall  find  that  there  is 
in  us  a  constant  action  and  reaction  between  the  infinite 
and  the  individual,  like  the  circulation  of  the  blood 
from  the  heart  to  the  extremities  and  back  again,  a 
constant  pulsation  of  vital  energy  quite  natural  and 
free  from  all  strain  and  exertion. 

This  is  the  great  secret  of  the  livingness  of  Life, 
and  it  is  called  by  many  names  and  set  forth  under 
many  symbols  in  various  religions  and  philosophies, 
each  of  which  has  its  value  in  proportion  as  it  brings 
us  nearer  the  realisation  of  this  perfect  wholeness. 
But  the  thing  itself  is  Life,  and  therefore  can  only  be 
suggested,  but  not  described,  by  any  words  or  symbols ; 
it  is  a  matter  of  personal  experience  which  no  one  can 
convey  to  another.  All  we  can  do  is  to  point  out  the 
direction  in  which  this  experience  is  to  be  sought,  and 
to  tell  others  the  intellectual  arguments  which  have 
helped  us  to  find  it;  but  the  experience  itself  is  the 
operation  of  definite  vital  functions  of  the  inner  be- 
ing, and  no  one  but  ourselves  can  do  our  living  for  us. 

But,  so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  express  these  things 
in  words,  what  must  be  the  result  of  realising  that  the 
"self"  in  us  includes  the  Infinite  as  well  as  the  Indi- 
vidual? All  the  resources  of  the  Infinite  must  be  at 
our  disposal;  we  may  draw  on  them  as  we  will,  and 
there  is  no  limit  save  that  imposed  by  the  Law  of 


Completeness  79 

Kindness,  a  self-imposed  limitation,  which,  because  of 
being  ^//-imposed,  is  not  bondage  but  only  another 
expression  of  our  liberty.  Thus  we  are  free  and  all 
limitations  are  removed. 

We  are  also  no  longer  ignorant,  for  since  the  "self" 
in  us  includes  the  Infinite  we  can  draw  thence  all 
needed  knowledge,  and  though  we  may  not  always  be 
able  to  formulate  this  knowledge  in  the  mentality,  we 
shall  feel  its  guidance,  and  eventually  the  mentality 
will  learn  to  put  this  also  into  form  of  words;  and 
thus  by  combining  thought  and  experience,  theory  and 
practice,  we  shall  by  degrees  come  more  and  more  into 
the  knowledge  of  the  Law  of  our  Being,  and  find  that 
there  is  no  place  in  it  for  fear,  because  it  is  the  law 
of  perfect  liberty.  And  knowing  what  our  whole 
self  really  is,  we  shall  walk  erect  as  free  men  and 
women  radiating  Light  and  Life  all  round,  so  that 
our  very  presence  will  carry  a  vivifying  influence  with 
it,  because  we  realise  ourselves  to  be  an  Affirmative 
Whole,  and  not  a  mere  negative  disintegration  of 
parts. 

We  know  that  our  whole  self  includes  that  Greater 
Man  which  is  back  of  and  causes  the  phenomenal 
man,  and  this  Greater  Man  is  the  true  human  principle 
in  us.  It  is,  therefore,  universal  in  its  sympathies,  but 
at  the  same  time  not  less  individually  our  self ;  and 
thus  the  true  man  in  us,  being  at  once  both  universal 
and  individual,  can  be  trusted  as  a  sure  guide.  It  is 
that  "Thinker"  which  is  behind  the  conscious  men- 


8o         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

tality,  and  which,  if  we  will  accept  it  as  our  centre, 
and  realise  that  it  is  not  a  separate  entity  but  ourself, 
will  be  found  equal  to  every  occasion,  and  will  lead 
us  out  of  a  condition  of  servitude  into  "the  glorious 
liberty  of  the  sons  of  God." 

' 


VII 

THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  GUIDANCE 

IF  I  were  asked  which  of  all  the  spiritual  principles 
ranked  first,  I  should  feel  inclined  to  say  the  Principle 
of  Guidance;  not  in  the  sense  of  being  more  essential 
than  the  others,  for  every  portion  is  equally  essential 
to  the  completeness  of  a  perfect  whole,  but  in  the 
sense  of  being  first  in  order  of  sequence  and  giving 
value  to  all  our  other  powers  by  placing  them  in  their 
due  relation  to  one  another.  "Giving  value  to  our 
other  powers,"  I  say,  because  this  also  is  one  of  our 
powers.  It  is  that  which,  judged  from  the  standpoint 
of  personal  self -consciousness,  is  above  us;  but  which, 
realised  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  unity  of  all 
Spirit,  is  part  and  parcel  of  ourselves,  because  it  is 
that  Infinite  Mind  which  is  of  necessity  identified  with 
all  its  manifestations. 

Looking  to  this  Infinite  Mind  as  a  Superior  Intelli- 
gence from  which  we  may  receive  guidance  does  not 
therefore  imply  looking  to  an  external  source.  On 
the  contrary,  it  is  looking  to  the  innermost  spring  of 
our  own  being,  with  a  confidence  in  its  action  which 
enables  us  to  proceed  to  the  execution  of  our  plans 

81 


82         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

with  a  firmness  and  assurance  that  are  in  themselves 
the  very  guarantee  of  our  success. 

The  action  of  the  spiritual  principles  in  us  follows 
the  order  which  we  impose  upon  them  by  our  thought ; 
therefore  the  order  of  realisation  will  reproduce  the 
order  of  desire;  and  if  we  neglect  this  first  principle 
of  right  order  and  guidance,  we  shall  find  ourselves 
beginning  to  put  forth  other  great  powers,  which  are 
at  present  latent  within  us,  without  knowing  how  to 
find  suitable  employment  for  them — which  would  be 
a  very  perilous  condition,  for  without  having  before 
us  objects  worthy  of  the  powers  to  which  we  awake, 
we  should  waste  them  on  petty  purposes  dictated  only 
by  the  narrow  range  of  our  unilluminated  intellect. 
Therefore  the  ancient  wisdom  says,  "With  all  thy 
getting,  get  understanding." 

The  awakening  to  consciousness  of  our  mysterious 
interior  powers  will  sooner  or  later  take  place,  and 
will  result  in  our  using  them  whether  we  understand 
the  law  of  their  development  or  not,  just  as  we  already 
use  our  physical  faculties  whether  we  understand  their 
laws  or  not.  The  interior  powers  are  natural  powers 
as  much  as  the  exterior  ones.  We  can  direct  their 
use  by  a  knowledge  of  their  laws;  and  it  is  therefore 
of  the  highest  importance  to  have  some  sound  prin- 
ciple of  guidance  in  the  use  of  these  higher  faculties 
as  they  begin  to  manifest  themselves. 

If,  therefore,  we  would  safely  and  profitably  enter 
upon  the  possession  of  the  great  inheritance  of  power 


The  Principle  of  Guidance  83 

that  is  opening  out  before  us,  we  must  before  all  things 
seek  to  realise  in  ourselves  that  Superior  Intelligence 
which  will  become  an  unfailing  principle  of  guidance 
if  we  will  only  recognise  it  as  such.  Every- 
thing depends  on  our  recognition.  Thoughts  are 
things,  and  therefore  as  we  will  our  thoughts  to 
be  so  we  will  the  thing  to  be.  If,  then,  we  will  to  use 
the  Infinite  Spirit  as  a  spirit  of  guidance,  we  shall 
find  that  the  fact  is  as  we  have  willed  it ;  and  in  doing 
this  we  are  still  making  use  of  our  own  supreme  prin- 
ciple. And  this  is  the  true  "understanding"  which, 
by  placing  all  the  other  powers  in  their  correct  order, 
creates  one  grand  unity  of  power  directed  to  clearly 
defined  and  worthy  aims,  in  place  of  the  dispersion  of 
our  powers,  by  which  they  only  neutralise  each  other 
and  effect  nothing. 

This  is  that  Spirit  of  Truth  which  shall  guide  us 
into  all  Truth.  It  is  the  sincere  Desire  of  us  reaching 
out  after  Truth.  Truth  first  and  Power  afterwards 
is  the  reasonable  order,  which  we  cannot  invert  with- 
out injury  to  ourselves  and  others;  but  if  we  follow 
this  order  we  shall  always  find  scope  for  our  powers 
in  developing  into  present  realities  the  continually 
growing  glory  of  our  vision  of  the  ideal. 

The  ideal  is  the  true  real,  but  it  must  be  brought  into 
manifestation  before  it  can  be  shown  to  be  so,  and  it 
is  in  this  that  the  practical  nature  of  our  mental  studies 
consists.  It  is  the  practical  mystic  who  is  the  man  of 
power;  the  man  who,  realising  the  mystical  powers 


84         The  Hidden  Power  and  OtJwr  Essays 

within,  fits  his  outward  action  to  this  knowledge,  and 
so  shows  his  faith  by  his  works;  and  assuredly  the 
first  step  is  to  make  use  of  that  power  of  infallible 
guidance  which  he  can  call  to  his  aid  simply  by  desiring 
to  be  led  by  it. 


VIII 
DESIRE  AS  THE  MOTIVE  POWER 

THERE  are  certain  Oriental  schools  of  thought,  to- 
gether with  various  Western  offshoots  from  them, 
which  are  entirely  founded  on  the  principle  of  anni- 
hilating all  desire.  Reach  that  point  at  which  you 
have  no  wish  for  anything  and  you  will  find  yourself 
free,  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  their  teaching;  and 
in  support  of  this  they  put  forward  a  great  deal  of 
very  specious  argument,  which  is  all  the  more  likely 
to  entangle  the  unwary,  because  it  contains  a  recogni- 
tion of  many  of  the  profoundest  truths  of  Nature. 
But  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  it  is  possible  to  have 
a  very  deep  knowledge  of  psychological  facts,  and 
at  the  same  time  vitiate  the  results  of  our  knowledge 
by  an  entirely  wrong  assumption  in  regard  to  the  law 
which  binds  these  facts  together  in  the  universal  sys- 
tem; and  the  injurious  results  of  misapprehension  upon 
such  a  vital  question  are  so  radical  and  far-reaching 
that  we  cannot  too  forcibly  urge  the  necessity  of  clearly 
understanding  the  true  nature  of  the  point  at  issue. 
Stripped  of  all  accessories  and  embellishments,  the 
question  resolves  itself  into  this:  Which  shall  we 

85 


86         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

choose  for  our  portion,  Life  or  Death?  There  can  be 
no  accommodation  between  the  two;  and  whichever 
we  select  as  our  guiding  principle  must  produce  re- 
sults of  a  kind  proper  to  itself. 

The  whole  of  this  momentous  question  turns  on  the 
'place  that  we  assign  to  desire  in  our  system  of  thought. 
Is  it  the  Tree  of  Life  in  the  midst  of  the  Garden  of 
the  Soul  ?  or  is  it  the  Upas  Tree  creating  a  wilderness 
of  death  all  around?  This  is  the  issue  on  which  we 
have  to  form  a  judgment,  and  this  judgment  must 
colour  all  our  conception  of  life  and  determine  the 
entire  range  of  our  possibilities.  Let  us,  then,  try  to 
picture  to  ourselves  the  ideal  proposed  by  the  systems 
to  which  I  have  alluded — a  man  who  has  succeeded 
in  entirely  annihilating  all  desire.  To  him  all  things 
must  be  alike.  The  good  and  the  evil  must  be  as  one, 
for  nothing  has  any  longer  the  power  to  raise  any 
desire  in  him ;  he  has  no  longer  any  feeling  which  shall 
prompt  him  to  say,  "This  is  good,  therefore  I  choose 
it;  that  is  evil,  therefore  I  reject  it";  for  all  choice 
implies  the  perception  of  something  more  desirable  in 
what  is  chosen  than  in  what  is  rejected,  and  conse- 
quently the  existence  of  that  feeling  of  desire  which 
has  been  entirely  eliminated  from  the  ideal  we  are 
contemplating. 

Then,  if  the  perception  of  all  that  makes  one  thing 
preferable  to  another  has  been  obliterated,  there  can 
be  no  motive  for  any  sort  of  action  whatever.  Endue 
a  being  who  has  thus  extinguished  his  faculty  of  desire 


Desire  as  the  Motive  Power  87 

with  the  power  to  create  a  universe,  and  he  has  no 
motive  for  employing  it.  Endue  him  with  all  knowl- 
edge, and  it  will  be  useless  to  him ;  for,  since  desire  has 
no  place  in  him,  he  is  without  any  purpose  for  which 
to  turn  his  knowledge  to  account.  And  with  Love  we 
cannot  endue  him,  for  that  is  desire  in  its  supreme 
degree.  But  if  all  this  be  excluded,  what  is  left  of  the 
man?  Nothing,  except  the  mere  outward  form.  If  he 
has  actually  obtained  this  ideal,  he  has  practically 
ceased  to  be.  Nothing  can  by  any  means  interest  him, 
for  there  is  nothing  to  attract  or  repel  in  one  thing 
more  than  in  another.  He  must  be  dead  alike  to  all 
feeling  and  to  all  motive  of  action,  for  both  feeling 
and  action  imply  the  preference  for  one  condition 
rather  than  another ;  and  where  desire  is  utterly  extin- 
guished, no  such  preference  can  exist. 

No  doubt  some  one  may  object  that  it  is  only  evil 
desires  which  are  thus  to  be  suppressed ;  but  a  perusal 
of  the  writings  of  the  schools  of  thought  in  question 
will  show  that  this  is  not  the  case.  The  foundation 
of  the  whole  system  is  that  all  desire  must  be  obliter- 
ated, the  desire  for  the  good  just  as  much  as  the  desire 
for  the  evil.  The  good  is  as  much  "illusion"  as  the 
evil,  and  until  we  have  reached  absolute  indifference 
to  both  we  have  not  attained  freedom.  When  we  have 
utterly  crushed  out  all  desire  we  are  free.  And  the 
practical  results  of  such  a  philosophy  are  shown  in 
the  case  of  Indian  devotees,  who,  in  pursuance  of  their 
resolve  to  crush  out  all  desire,  both  for  good  and  evil 


88         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

alike,  become  nothing  more  than  outward  images  of 
men,  from  which  all  power  of  perception  and  of  action 
have  long  since  fled. 

The  mergence  in  the  universal,  at  which  they  thus 
aim,  becomes  nothing  more  than  a  self-induced  hyp- 
notism, which,  if  maintained  for  a  sufficient  length  of 
time,  saps  away  every  power  of  mental  and  bodily 
activity,  leaving  nothing  but  the  outside  husk  of  an 
attenuated  human  form — the  hopeless  wreck  of  what 
was  once  a  living  man.  This  is  the  logical  result  of 
a  system  which  assumes  for  its  starting-point  that  de- 
sire is  evil  in  itself,  that  every  desire  is  per  se  a  form 
of  bondage,  independently  of  the  nature  of  its  object. 
The  majority  of  the  followers  of  this  philosophy  may 
lack  sufficient  resolution  to  carry  it  out  rigorously  to 
its  practical  conclusions;  but  whether  their  ideal  is  to 
be  realised  in  this  world  or  in  some  other,  the  utter 
extinction  of  desire  means  nothing  else  than  absolute 
apathy,  without  feeling  and  without  action. 

How  entirely  false  such  an  idea  is — not  only  from 
the  standpoint  of  our  daily  life,  but  also  from  that  of 
the  most  transcendental  conception  of  the  Universal 
Principle — is  evidenced  by  the  mere  fact  that  anything 
exists  at  all.  If  the  highest  ideal  is  that  of  utter 
apathy,  then  the  Creative  Power  of  the  universe  must 
be  extremely  low-minded ;  and  all  that  we  have  hitherto 
been  accustomed  to  look  upon  as  the  marvellous  order 
and  beauty  of  creation,  is  nothing  but  a  display  of  vul- 
garity and  ignorance  of  sound  philosophy. 


Desire  as  the  Motive  Power  89 

But  the  fact  that  creation  exists  proves  that  the 
Universal  Mind  thinks  differently,  and  we  have  only 
to  look  around  to  see  that  the  true  ideal  is  the  exercise 
of  creative  power.  Hence,  so  far  from  desire  being  a 
thing  to  be  annihilated,  it  is  the  very  root  of  every 
conceivable  mode  of  Life.  Without  it  Life  could  not 
be.  Every  form  of  expression  implies  the  selection  of 
all  that  goes  to  make  up  that  form,  and  the  passing-by 
of  whatever  is  not  required  for  that  purpose;  hence  a 
desire  for  that  which  is  selected  in  preference  to  what 
is  laid  aside.  And  this  selective  desire  is  none  other 
than  the  universal  Law  of  Attraction. 

Whether  this  law  acts  as  the  chemical  affinity  of  ap- 
parently unconscious  atoms,  or  in  the  instinctive,  if 
unreasoned,  attractions  of  the  vegetable  and  animal 
worlds,  it  is  still  the  principle  of  selective  affinity ;  and 
it  continues  to  be  the  same  when  it  passes  on  into  the 
higher  kingdoms  which  are  ruled  by  reason  and  con- 
scious purpose.  The  modes  of  activity  in  each  of 
these  kingdoms  are  dictated  by  the  nature  of  the  king- 
dom; but  the  activity  itself  always  results  from  the 
preference  of  a  certain  subject  for  a  certain  object,  to 
the  exclusion  of  all  others;  and  all  action  consists  in 
the  reciprocal  movement  of  the  two  towards  each  other 
in  obedience  to  the  law  of  their  affinity. 

When  this  takes  place  in  the  kingdom  of  conscious 
individuality,  the  affinities  exhibit  themselves  as  mental 
action;  but  the  principle  of  selection  prevails  without 
exception  throughout  the  universe.  In  the  conscious 


90         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

mind  this  attraction  towards  its  affinity  becomes  desire ; 
the  desire  to  create  some  condition  of  things  better  than 
that  now  existing.  Our  want  of  knowledge  may  cause 
us  to  make  mistakes  as  to  what  this  better  thing  really 
is,  and  so  in  seeking  to  carry  out  our  desire  we  may 
give  it  a  wrong  direction;  but  the  fault  is  not  in  the 
desire  itself,  but  in  our  mistaken  notion  of  what  it  is 
that  it  requires  for  its  satisfaction.  Hence  unrest  and 
dissatisfaction  until  its  true  affinity  is  found;  but,  as 
soon  as  this  is  discovered,  the  law  of  attraction  at  once 
asserts  itself  and  produces  that  better  condition,  the' 
dream  of  which  first  gave  direction  to  our  thoughts. 

Thus  it  is  eternally  true  that  desire  is  the  cause  of 
all  feeling  and  all  action;  in  other  words,  of  all  Life. 
The  whole  livingness  of  Life  consists  in  receiving  or 
in  radiating  forth  the  vibrations  produced  by  the  law 
of  attraction ;  and  in  the  kingdom  of  mind  these  vibra- 
tions necessarily  become  conscious  out-reachings  of 
the  mind  in  the  direction  in  which  it  feels  attraction; 
that  is  to  say,  they  become  desires.  Desire  is  there- 
fore the  mind  seeking  to  manifest  itself  in  some  form 
which  as  yet  exists  only  in  its  thought.  It  is  the  prin- 
ciple of  creation,  whether  the  thing  created  be  a  world 
or  a  wooden  spoon;  both  have  their  origin  in  the  de- 
sire to  bring  something  into  existence  which  does  not 
yet  exist.  Whatever  may  be  the  scale  on  which  we  exer- 
cise our  creative  ability,  the  motive  power  must  always 
be  desire. 

Desire  is  the  force  behind  all  things;  it  is  the  mov- 


Desire  as  the  Motive  Power  91 

ing  principle  of  the  universe  and  the  innermost  centre 
of  all  Life.  Hence,  to  take  the  negation  of  desire  for 
our  primal  principle  is  to  endeavour  to  stamp  out  Life 
itself ;  but  what  we  have  to  do  is  to  acquire  the  requi- 
site knowledge  by  which  to  guide  our  desires  to  their 
true  objects  of  satisfaction.  To  do  this  is  the  whole 
end  of  knowledge;  and  any  knowledge  applied  other- 
wise is  only  a  partial  knowledge,  which,  having  failed 
in  its  purpose,  is  nothing  but  ignorance.  Desire  is  thus 
the  sum-total  of  the  livingness  of  Life,  for  it  is  that 
in  which  all  movement  originates,  whether  on  the 
physical  level  or  the  spiritual.  In  a  word,  desire  is  the 
creative  power,  and  must  be  carefully  guarded,  trained, 
and  directed  accordingly;  but  thus  to  seek  to  develop 
it  to  the  highest  perfection  is  the  very  opposite  of 
trying  to  kill  it  outright. 

And  desire  has  fulfilment  for  its  correlative.  The 
desire  and  its  fulfilment  are  bound  together  as  cause 
and  effect;  and  when  we  realise  the  law  of  their  se- 
quence, we  shall  be  more  than  ever  impressed  with  the 
supreme  importance  of  Desire  as  the  great  centre  of 
Life. 


IX 

TOUCHING  LIGHTLY 

WHAT  is  our  point  of  support?  Is  it  in  ourselves  or 
outside  us?  Are  we  self-poised,  or  does  our  balance 
depend  on  something  external?  According  to  the  ac- 
tual belief  in  which  our  answer  to  these  questions  is 
embodied  so  will  our  lives  be.  In  everything  there 
are  two  parts,  the  essential  and  the  incidental — that 
which  is  the  nucleus  and  raison  d'etre  of  the  whole 
thing,  and  that  which  gathers  round  this  nucleus  and 
takes  form  from  it.  The  true*  knowledge  always  con- 
sists in  distinguishing  these  two  from  each  other,  and 
error  always  consists  in  misplacing  them. 

In  all  our  affairs  there  are  two  factors,  ourselves 
and  the  matter  to  be  dealt  with ;  and  since  for  MS  the 
nature  of  anything  is  always  determined  by  our 
thought  of  it,  it  is  entirely  a  question  of  our  belief 
which  of  these  two  factors  shall  be  the  essential  and 
which  the  accessory.  Whichever  we  regard  as  the 
essential,  the  other  at  once  becomes  the  incidental.  The 
incidental  can  never  be  absent.  For  any  sort  of  action 
to  take  place  there  must  be  some  conditions  under 
which  the  activity  passes  out  into  visible  results;  but 
the  same  sort  of  activity  may  occur  under  a  variety 

92 


Touching  Lightly  93 

of  different  conditions,  and  may  thus  produce  very 
different  visible  results.  So  in  every  matter  we  shall 
always  find  an  essential  or  energising  factor,  and  an 
incidental  factor  which  derives  its  quality  from  the 
nature  of  the  energy. 

We  can  therefore  never  escape  from  having  to  select 
our  essential  and  our  incidental  factor,  and  whichever 
we  select  as  the  essential,  we  thereby  place  the  other 
in  the  position  of  the  incidental.  If,  then,  we  make 
the  mistake  of  reversing  the  true  position  and  suppose 
that  the  energising  force  comes  from  the  merely  acces- 
sory circumstances,  we  make  them  our  point  of  support 
and  lean  upon  them,  and  stand  or  fall  with  them  ac- 
cordingly; and  so  we  come  into  a  condition  of  weak- 
ness and  obsequious  waiting  on  all  sorts  of  external 
influences,  which  is  the  very  reverse  of  that  strength, 
wisdom,  and  opulence  which  are  the  only  meaning  of 
Liberty. 

But  if  we  would  ask  ourselves  the  common-sense 
question  Where  can  the  centre  of  a  man's  Life  be  ex- 
cept in  himself  ?  we  shall  see  that  in  all  which  pertains 
to  us  the  energising  centre  must  be  in  ourselves.  We 
can  never  get  away  from  ourselves  as  the  centre  of 
our  own  universe,  and  the  sooner  we  clearly  under- 
stand this  the  better.  There  is  really  no  energy  in  our 
universe  but  what  emanates  from  ourselves  in  the  first 
instance,  and  the  power  which  appears  to  reside  in  our 
surroundings  is  derived  entirely  from  our  own  mind. 

If  once  we  realise  this,  and  consider  that  the  Life 


94         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essay* 

which  flows  into  us  from  the  Universal  Life-Principle 
is  at  every  moment  new  Life  entirely  undifferentiated 
to  any  particular  purpose  besides  that  of  supporting 
our  own  individuality,  and  that  it  is  therefore  ours  to 
externalise  in  any  form  we  will,  then  we  find  that  this 
manifestation  of  the  eternal  Life-Principle  in  ourselves 
is  the  standpoint  from  which  we  can  control  our  sur- 
roundings. We  must  lean  firmly  on  the  central  point 
of  our  own  being  and  not  on  anything  else.  Our  mis- 
take is  in  taking  our  surroundings  too  much  ffau  grand 
serieux."  We  should  touch  things  more  lightly.  As 
soon  as  we  feel  that  their  weight  impedes  our  free  han- 
dling of  them  they  are  mastering  us,  and  not  we  them. 

Light  handling  does  not  mean  weak  handling.  On 
the  contrary,  lightness  of  touch  is  incompatible  with  a 
weak  grasp  of  the  instrument,  which  implies  that  the 
weight  of  the  tool  is  excessive  relatively  to  the  force 
that  seeks  to  guide  it.  A  light,  even  playful  handling, 
therefore  implies  a  firm  grasp  and  perfect  control  over 
the  instrument.  It  is  only  in  the  hands  of  a  Grinling 
Gibbons  that  the  carving  tool  can  create  miracles  of 
aerial  lightness  from  the  solid  wood.  The  light  yet 
firm  touch  tells  not  of  weakness,  but  of  power  held  in 
reserve;  and  if  we  realise  our  own  out-and-out  spiritual 
nature  we  know  that  behind  any  measure  of  power  we 
may  put  forth  there  is  the  whole  reserve  of  the  infinite 
to  back  us  up. 

As  we  come  to  know  this  we  begin  to  handle  things 
lightly,  playing  with  them  as  a  juggler  does  with  his 


Touching  Lightly  95 

flying  knives,  which  cannot  make  the  slightest  move- 
ment other  than  he  has  assigned  to  them,  for  we  begin 
to  see  that  our  control  over  things  is  part  of  the  neces- 
sary order  of  the  universe.  The  disorder  we  have  met 
with  in  the  past  has  resulted  precisely  from  our  never 
having  attempted  consciously  to  introduce  this  element 
of  our  personal  control  as  part  of  the  system. 

Of  course,  I  speak  of  the  whole  man,  and  not  merely 
of  that  part  of  him  which  Walt  Whitman  says  is  con- 
tained between  his  hat  and  his  boots.  The  whole  man 
is  an  infinitude,  and  the  visible  portion  of  him  is  the 
instrument  through  which  he  looks  out  upon  and  en- 
joys all  that  belongs  to  him,  his  own  kingdom  of  the 
infinite.  And  when  he  learns  that  this  is  the  meaning 
of  his  conscious  individuality,  he  sees  how  it  is  that 
he  is  infinite,  and  finds  that  he  is  one  with  Infinite 
Mind,  which  is  the  innermost  core  of  the  universe, 
Having  thus  reached  the  true  centre  of  his  own  being, 
he  can  never  give  this  central  place  to  anything  else, 
but  will  realise  that  relatively  to  this  all  other  things 
are  in  the  position  of  the  incidental  and  accessory,  and 
growing  daily  in  this  knowledge  he  will  learn  so  to 
handle  all  things  lightly,  yet  firmly,  that  grief,  fear, 
and  error  will  have  less  and  less  space  in  his  world, 
until  at  last  sorrow  and  sighing  shall  flee  away,  and 
everlasting  joy  shall  take  their  place.  We  may  have 
taken  only  a  few  steps  on  the  way  as  yet,  but  they  are 
in  the  right  direction,  and  what  we  have  to  do  now  is 
to  go  on. 


X 

PRESENT  TRUTH 

* 

IF  Thought  power  is  good  for  anything  it  is  good  for 
everything.  If  it  can  produce  one  thing  it  can  produce 
all  things.  For  what  is  to  hinder  it?  Nothing  can 
stop  us  from  thinking.  We  can  think  what  we  please, 
and  if  to  think  is  to  form,  then  we  can  form  what  we 
please.  The  whole  question,  therefore,  resolves  itself 
into  this:  Is  it  true  that  to  think  is  to  form?  If  so, 
do  we  not  see  that  our  limitations  are  formed  in  pre- 
cisely the  same  way  as  our  expansions?  We  think 
that  conditions  outside  our  thought  have  power  over 
us,  and  so  we  think  power  into  them.  So  the  great 
question  of  life  is  whether  there  is  any  other  creative 
power  than  Thought.  If  so,  where  is  it,  and  what  is 
it? 

Both  philosophy  and  religion  lead  us  to  the  truth 
that  "in  the  beginning"  there  was  no  other  creative 
power  than  Spirit,  and  the  only  mode  of  activity  we 
can  possibly  attribute  to  Spirit  is  Thought,  and  so  we 
find  Thought  as  the  root  of  all  things.  And  if  this 
was  the  case  "in  the  beginning"  it  must  be  so  still; 
for  if  all  things  originate  in  Thought,  all  things  must 
be  modes  of  Thought,  and  so  it  is  impossible  for  Spirit 

96 


Present  Truth  97 

ever  to  hand  over  its  creations  to  some  power  which  is 
not  itself — that  is  to  say,  which  is  not  Thought-power; 
and  consequently  all  the  forms  and  circumstances  that 
surround  us  are  manifestations  of  the  creative  power 
of  Thought. 

But  it  may  be  objected  that  this  is  God's  Thought; 
and  that  the  creative  power  is  in  God  and  not  Man. 
But  this  goes  away  from  the  self-evident  axiomatic 
truth  that  "in  the  beginning"  nothing  could  have  had 
any  origin  except  Thought.  It  is  quite  true  that 
nothing  has  any  origin  except  in  the  Divine  Mind, 
and  Man  himself  is  therefore  a  mode  of  the  Divine 
Thought.  Again,  Man  is  self-conscious;  therefore 
Man  is  the  Divine  Thought  evolved  into  individual 
consciousness,  and  when  he  becomes  sufficiently  en- 
lightened to  realise  this  as  his  origin,  then  he  sees  that 
he  is  a  reproduction  in  individuality  of  the  same  spirit 
which  produces  all  things,  and  that  his  own  thought 
in  individuality  has  exactly  the  same  quality  as  the 
Divine  Thought  in  universality,  just  as  fire  is  equally 
igneous  whether  burning  round  a  large  centre  of  com- 
bustion or  a  small  one,  and  thus  we  are  logically 
brought  to  the  conclusion  that  our  thought  must  have 
creative  power. 

But  people  say,  "We  have  not  found  it  so.  We  are 
surrounded  by  all  sorts  of  circumstances  that  we  do 
not  desire."  Yes,  you  fear  them,  and  in  so  doing  you 
think  them;  and  in  this  way  you  are  constantly  exer- 
cising this  Divine  prerogative  of  creation  by  Thought, 


98         The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

only  through  ignorance  you  use  it  in  a  wrong  direc- 
tion. Therefore  the  Book  of  Divine  Instructions  so 
constantly  repeats  "Fear  not;  doubt  not,"  because  we 
can  never  divest  our  Thought  of  its  inherent  creative 
quality,  and  the  only  question  is  whether  we  shall  use 
it  ignorantly  to  our  injury  or  understandingly  to  our 
benefit. 

The  Master  summed  up  his  teaching  in  the  aphorism 
that  knowledge  of  the  Truth  would  make  us  free. 
Here  is  no  announcement  of  anything  we  have  to  do, 
or  of  anything  that  has  to  be  done  for  us,  in  order  to 
gain  our  liberty,  neither  is  it  a  statement  of  anything 
future.  Truth  is  what  is.  He  did  not  say,  you  must 
wait  till  something  becomes  true  which  is  not  true  now. 
He  said :  "Know  what  is  Truth  now,  and  you  will 
find  that  the  Truth  concerning  yourself  is  Liberty." 
If  the  knowledge  of  Truth  makes  us  free  it  can  only 
be  because  in  truth  we  are  free  already,  only  we  do 
not  know  it. 

Our  liberty  consists  in  our  reproducing  on  the  scale 
of  the  individual  the  same  creative  power  of  Thought 
which  first  brought  the  world  into  existence,  "so  that 
the  things  which  are  seen  were  not  made  of  things 
which  do  appear."  Let  us,  then,  confidently  claim  our 
birthright  as  "sons  and  daughters  of  the  Almighty," 
and  by  habitually  thinking  the  good,  the  beautiful, 
and  the  true,  surround  ourselves  with  conditions  cor- 
responding to  our  thoughts,  and  by  our  teaching  and 
example  help  others  to  do  the  same. 


XI 

YOURSELF 

I  WANT  to  talk  to  you  about  the  livingness  there  is  in 
being  yourself.  It  has  at  least  the  merit  of  simplicity, 
for  it  must  surely  be  easier  to  be  oneself  than  to  be 
something  or  somebody  else.  Yet  that  is  what  so 
many  are  constantly  trying  to  do;  the  self  that  is  their 
own  is  not  good  enough  for  them,  and  so  they  are 
always  trying  to  go  one  better  than  what  God  has  made 
them,  with  endless  strain  and  struggle  as  the  conse- 
quence. Of  course,  they  are  right  to  put  before  them 
an  ideal  infinitely  grander  than  anything  they  have  yet 
attained — the  only  possible  way  of  progress  is  by  fol- 
lowing an  ideal  that  is  always  a  stage  ahead  of  us — 
but  the  mistake  is  in  not  seeing  that  its  attainment 
is  a  matter  of  growth,  and  that  growth  must  be  the 
expansion  of  something  that  already  exists  in  us,  and 
therefore  implies  our  being  what  we  are  and  where 
we  are  as  its  starting  point.  This  growth  is  a  continu- 
ous process,  and  we  cannot  do  next  month's  growth 
without  first  doing  this  month's;  but  we  are  always 
wanting  to  jump  into  some  ideal  of  the  future,  not 
seeing  that  we  can  reach  it  only  by  steadily  going  on 
from  where  we  are  now. 

99 


ioo       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

These  considerations  should  make  us  more  confi- 
dent and  more  comfortable.  We  are  employing  a  force 
which  is  much  greater  than  we  believe  ourselves  to  be, 
yet  it  is  not  separate  from  us  and  needing  to  be  per- 
suaded or  compelled,  or  inveigled  into  doing  what  we 
want;  it  is  the  substratum  of  our  own  being  which  is 
continually  passing  up  into  manifestation  on  the  visible 
plane  and  becoming  that  personal  self  to  which  we 
often  limit  our  attention  without  considering  whence 
it  proceeds.  But  in  truth  the  outer  self  is  the  surface 
growth  of  that  individuality  which  lies  concealed  far 
down  in  the  deeps  below,  and  which  is  none  other  than 
the  Spirit-of-Life  which  underlies  all  forms  of  mani- 
festation. 

Endeavour  to  realise  what  this  Spirit  must  be  in 
itself — that  is  to  say,  apart  from  any  of  the  conditions 
that  arise  from  the  various  relations  which  neces- 
sarily establish  themselves  between  its  various  forms 
of  individualisation.  In  its  homogeneous  self  what 
else  can  it  be  but  pure  life — Essence-of-Life,  if  you 
like  so  to  call  it?  Then  realise  that  as  Essence-of-Life 
it  exists  in  the  innermost  of  every  one  of  its  forms  of 
manifestation  in  as  perfect  simplicity  as  any  we  can 
attribute  to  it  in  our  most  abstract  conceptions.  In  this 
light  we  see  it  to  be  the  eternally  self -generating  power 
which,  to  express  itself,  flows  into  form. 

This  universal  Essence-of-Life  is  a  continual  becom- 
ing (into  form),  and  since  we  are  a  part  of  Nature 
we  do  not  need  to  go  further  than  ourselves  to  find 


Yourself  101 

the  life-giving  energy  at  work  with  all  its  powers. 
Hence  all  we  have  to  do  is  to  allow  it  to  rise  to  the 
surface.  We  do  not  have  to  make  it  rise  any  more 
than  the  engineer  who  sinks  the  bore-pipe  for  an 
artesian  well  has  to  make  the  water  rise  in  it;  the 
water  does  that  by  its  own  energy,  springing  as  a 
fountain  a  hundred  feet  into  the  air.  Just  so  we  shall 
find  a  fountain  of  Essence-of-Life  ready  to  spring  up 
in  ourselves,  inexhaustible  and  continually  increasing 
in  its  flow,  as  One  taught  long  ago  to  a  woman  at  a 
wayside  well. 

This  up-springing  of  Life-Essence  is  not  another's — 
it  is  our  own.  It  does  not  require  deep  studies,  hard 
labours,  weary  journeyings  to  attain  it;  it  is  not  the 
monopoly  of  this  teacher  or  that  writer,  whose  lec- 
tures we  must  attend  or  whose  books  we  must  read 
to  get  it.  It  is  the  innermost  of  ourselves,  and  a  little 
common-sense  thought  as  to  how  anything  comes  to  be 
anything  will  soon  convince  us  that  the  great  inex- 
haustible life  must  be  the  very  root  and  substance 
of  us,  permeating  every  fibre  of  our  being. 

Surely  to  be  this  vast  infinitude  of  living  power  must 
be  enough  to  satisfy  all  our  desires,  and  yet  this  won- 
derful ideal  is  nothing  else  but  what  we  already  are 
in  principle — it  is  all  there  in  ourselves  now,  only 
awaiting  our  recognition  for  its  manifestation.  It  is 
not  the  Essence-of-Life  which  has  to  grow,  for  that 
is  eternally  perfect  in  itself;  but  it  is  our  recognition 
of  it  that  has  to  grow,  and  this  growth  cannot  be 


IO2       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 
i 

forced.  It  must  come  by  a  natural  process,  the  first 
necessity  of  which  is  to  abstain  from  all  straining  after 
being  something  which  at  the  present  time  we  cannot 
naturally  be.  The  Law  of  our  Evolution  has  put  us  in 
possession  of  certain  powers  and  opportunities,  and 
our  further  development  depends  on  our  doing  just 
what  these  powers  and  opportunities  make  it  possible 
for  us  to  do,  h6re  and  now. 

If  we  do  what  we  are  able  to  do  to-day,  it  will  open 
the  way  for  us  to  do  something  better  to-morrow,  and 
in  this  manner  the  growing  process  will  proceed  health- 
ily and  happily  in  a  rapidly  increasing  ratio.  This  is 
so  much  easier  than  striving  to  compel  things  to  be 
what  they  are  not,  and  it  is  also  so  much  more  fruit- 
ful in  good  results.  It  is  not  sitting  still  doing  nothing, 
and  there  is  plenty  of  room  for  the  exercise  of  all  our 
mental  faculties,  but  these  faculties  are  themselves  the 
outcome  of  the  Essence-of-Life,  and  are  not  the  cre- 
ating power,  but  only  that  which  gives  direction  to  it. 
Now  it  is  this  moving  power  at  the  back  of  the  various 
faculties  that  is  the  true  innermost  self;  and  if  we 
realise  the  identity  between  the  innermost  and  the  out- 
ermost, we  shall  see  that  we  therefore  have  at  our 
present  disposal  all  that  is  necessary  for  our  unlimited 
development  in  the  future. 

Thus  our  livingness  consists  simply  in  being  our- 
selves, only  more  so;  and  in  recognising  this  we  get 
rid  of  a  great  burden  of  unnecessary  straining  and 
striving,  and  the  place  of  the  old  strum  und  drang  will 


Yourself  103 

be  taken,  not  by  inertia,  but  by  a  joyous  activity  which 
knows  that  it  always  has  the  requisite  power  to  mani- 
fest itself  in  forms  of  good  and  beauty.  What  mat- 
ters it  whither  this  leads  us?  If  we  are  following  the 
line  of  the  beautiful  and  good,  then  we  shall  produce 
the  beautiful  and  good,  and  thus  bring  increasing  joy 
into  the  world,  whatever  particular  form  it  may 
assume. 

We  limit  ourselves  when  we  try  to  fix  accurately 
beforehand  the  particular  form  of  good  that  we  shall 
produce.  We  should  aim  not  so  much  at  having  or 
making  some  particular  thing  as  at  expressing  all  that 
we  are.  The  expressing  will  grow  out  of  realising 
the  treasures  that  are  ours  already,  and  contemplating 
the  beauty,  the  affirmative  side,  of  all  that  we  are  now, 
apart  from  the  negative  conceptions  and  detractions 
which  veil  this  positive  good  from  us.  When  we  do 
this  we  shall  be  astonished  to  see  what  possibilities 
reside  in  ourselves  as  we  are  and  with  our  present 
surroundings,  all  unlovely  as  we  may  deem  them :  and 
commencing  to  work  at  once  upon  whatever  we  find 
of  affirmative  in  these,  and  withdrawing  our  thought 
from  what  we  have  hitherto  seen  of  negative  in  them, 
the  right  road  will  open  up  before  us,  leading  us  in 
wonderful  ways  to  the  development  of  powers  that 
we  never  suspected,  and  the  enjoyment  of  happiness 
that  we  never  anticipated. 

We  have  never  been  out  of  our  right  path,  only  we 
have  been  walking  in  it  backwards  instead  of  forwards, 


IO4       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

and  now  that  we  have  begun  to  follow  the  path  in 
the  right  direction,  we  find  that  it  is  none  other  than 
the  way  of  peace,  the  path  of  joy,  and  the  road  to 
eternal  life.  These  things  we  may  attain  by  simply 
living  naturally  with  ourselves.  It  is  because  we  are 
trying  to  be  or  do  something  which  is  not  natural  to 
us  that  we  experience  weariness  and  labour,  where 
we  should  find  all  our  activities  joyously  concentrated 
on  objects  which  lead  to  their  own  accomplishment 
by  the  force  of  the  love  that  we  have  for  them.  But 
when  we  make  the  grand  discovery  of  how  to  live 
naturally,  we  shall  find  it  to  be  all,  and  more  than  all, 
that  we  had  ever  desired,  and  our  daily  life  will  become 
a  perpetual  joy  to  ourselves,  and  we  shall  radiate  light 
and  life  wherever  we  go. 


XII 

RELIGIOUS  OPINIONS 

THAT  great  and  wise  writer,  George  Eliot,  expressed 
her  matured  views  on  the  subject  of  religious  opinions 
in  these  words:  "I  have  too  profound  a  conviction 
of  the  efficacy  that  lies  in  all  sincere  faith,  and  the 
spiritual  blight  that  comes  with  no  faith,  to  have  any 
negative  propagandism  left  in  me."  This  had  not 
always  been  her  attitude,  for  in  her  youth  she  had  had 
a  good  deal  of  negative  propagandism  in  her;  but  the 
experience  of  a  lifetime  led  her  to  form  this  estimate 
of  the  value  of  sincere  faith,  independently  of  the 
particular  form  of  thought  which  leads  to  it. 

Tennyson  also  came  to  the  same  conclusion,   and 
gives  kindly  warning: — 

"O  thou  who  after  toil  and  storm 

May'st  seem  to  have  reached  a  purer  air, 
Whose  faith  has  centred  everywhere, 

Nor  cares  to  fix  itself  to  form. 

Leave  thou  thy  sister  when  she  prays 

Her  early  heaven,  her  happy  views, 

Nor  thou  with  shadowed  hint  confuse 
A  life  that  leads  melodious  days." 
105 


io6       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

And  thus  these  two  great  minds  have  left  us  a  lesson 
of  wisdom  which  we  shall  do  well  to  profit  by.  Let 
us  see  how  it  applies  more  particularly  to  our  own 
case. 

The  true  presentment  of  the  Higher  Thought  con- 
tains no  "negative  propagandism."  It  is  everywhere 
ranged  on  the  side  of  the  Affirmative,  and  its  great  ob- 
ject is  to  extirpate  the  canker  which  gnaws  at  the  root 
of  every  life  that  endeavours  to  centre  itself  upon  the 
Negative.  Its  purpose  is  constructive  and  not  destruc- 
tive. But  we  often  find  people  labouring  under  a  very 
erroneous  impression  as  to  the  nature  and  scope  of  the 
movement,  and  thus  not  only  themselves  deterred  from 
investigating  it,  but  also  deterring  others  from  doing 
so.  Sometimes  this  results  from  the  subject  having 
been  presented  to  them  unwisely — in  a  way  needlessly 
repugnant  to  the  particular  form  of  religious  ideas  to 
which  they  are  accustomed;  but  more  often  it  results 
from  their  prejudging  the  whole  matter,  and  making 
up  their  minds  that  the  movement  is  opposed  to  their 
ideas  of  religion,  without  being  at  the  pains  to  inquire 
what  its  principles  really  are.  In  either  case  a  few 
words  on  the  attitude  of  the  New  Thought  towards 
the  current  forms  of  religious  opinion  may  not  be 
out  of  place. 

The  first  consideration  in  every  concern  is,  What  is 
the  object  aimed  at?  The  end  determines  the  means 
to  be  employed,  and  if  the  nature  of  the  end  be  clearly 
kept  in  view,  then  no  objectless  complications  will  be 


Religious  Opinions  107 

introduced  into  the  means.  All  *his  seems  too  obvious 
to  be  stated,  but  it  is  just  the  failure  to  realise  this 
simple  truth  that  has  givei.  rise  to  the  whole  body  of 
odium  theologicum,  with  all  the  persecutions  and  mas- 
sacres and  martyrdoms  which  disgrace  the  pages  of 
history,  making  so  many  of  them  a  record  of  nothing 
but  ferocity  and  stupidity.  Let  us  hope  for  a  better 
record  in  the  future ;  and  if  we  are  to  get  it,  it  will  be 
by  the  adoption  of  the  simple  principle  here  stated. 

In  our  own  country  alone  the  varieties  of  churches 
and  sects  form  a  lengthy  catalogue,  but  in  every  one 
of  them  the  purpose  is  the  same — to  establish  the 
individual  in  a  satisfactory  relation  to  the  Divine 
Power.  The  very  fact  of  any  religious  profession  at 
all  implies  the  recognition  of  God  as  the  Source  of 
life  and  of  all  that  goes  to  make  life;  and  therefore 
the  purpose  in  every  case  is  to  draw  increasing  de- 
grees of  life,  whether  here  or  hereafter,  from  the 
Only  Source  from  which  alone  it  is  to  be  obtained, 
and  therefore  to  establish  such  a  relation  with  this 
Source  as  may  enable  the  worshipper  to  draw  from  It 
all  the  life  he  wants.  Hence  the  necessary  preliminary 
to  drawing  consciously  at  all  is  the  confidence  that 
such  a  relation  actually  has  been  established ;  and  such 
a  confidence  as  this  is  exactly  all  that  is  meant  by 
Faith. 

The  position  of  the  man  who  has  not  this  confidence 
is  either  that  no  such  Source  exists,  or  else  that  he  is 
without  means  of  access  to  It;  and  in  either  case  he 


io8       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

feels  himself  left  to  fight  for  his  own  hand  against 
the  entire  universe  without  the  consciousness  of  any 
Superior  Power  to  back  him  up.  He  is  thrown  en- 
tirely upon  his  own  resources,  not  knowing  of  the 
interior  spring  from  which  they  may  be  unceasingly 
replenished.  He  is  like  a  plant  cut  off  at  the  stem 
and  stuck  in  the  ground  without  any  root,  and  conse- 
quently that  spiritual  blight  of  which  George  Eliot 
speaks  creeps  over  him,  producing  weakness,  perplex- 
ity, and  fear,  with  all  their  baleful  consequences,  where 
there  should  be  that  strength,  order,  and  confidence 
which  are  the  very  foundation  of  all  building-up  for 
whatever  purpose,  whether  of  personal  prosperity  or 
of  usefulness  to  others. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  those  who  are  acquainted 
with  the  laws  of  spiritual  life,  such  a  man  is  cut  off 
from  the  root  of  his  own  Being.     Beyond  and  far 
interior  to  that  outer  self  which  each  of  us  knows  as 
the  intellectual  man  working  with  the  physical  brain 
as  instrument,  we  have  roots  penetrating  deep  into  that 
Infinite  of  which,  in  our  ordinary  waking  state,  we 
are  only  dimly  conscious;  and  it  is  through  this  root 
of  our  own  individuality,  spreading  far  down  into  the 
hidden  depths  of  Being,  that  we  draw  out  of  the  un- 
seen that  unceasing  stream  of  Life  which  afterwards, 
by  our  thought-power,  we  differentiate  into  all  those 
outward  forms  of  which  we  have  need.     Hence  the 
unceasing  necessity  for  every  one  to  realise  the  great 
truth  that  his  whole  individuality  has  its  foundation 


Religious  Opinions  109 

in  such  a  root,  and  that  the  ground  in  which  this  root 
is  embedded  is  that  Universal  Being  for  which  there 
is  no  name  save  that  of  the  One  all-embracing  I  AM. 

The  supreme  necessity,  therefore,  for  each  of  us  is  to 
realise  this  fundamental  fact  of  our  own  nature,  for 
it  is  only  in  proportion  as  we  do  so  that  we  truly  live ; 
and,  therefore,  whatever  helps  us  to  this  realisation 
should  be  carefully  guarded.  In  so  far  as  any  form  of 
religion  contributes  to  this  end  in  the  case  of  any  par- 
ticular individual,  for  him  it  is  true  religion.  It  may 
be  imperfect,  but  it  is  true  so  far  as  it  goes ;  and  what 
is  wanted  is  not  to  destroy  the  foundation  of  a  man's 
faith  because  it  is  narrow,  but  to  expand  it.  And  this 
expanding  will  be  done  by  the  man  himself,  for  it  is  a 
growth  from  within  and  not  a  construction  from  with- 
out. 

Our  attitude  towards  the  religious  beliefs  of  others 
should,  therefore,  not  be  that  of  iconoclasts,  breaking 
down  ruthlessly  whatever  from  our  point  of  view  we 
see  to  be  merely  traditionary  idols  (in  Bacon's  sense 
of  the  word),  but  rather  the  opposite  method  of  fixing 
upon  that  in  another's  creed  which  we  find  to  be  posi- 
tive and  affirmative,  and  gradually  leading  him  to  per- 
ceive in  what  its  affirmativeness  consists;  and  then, 
when  once  he  has  got  the  clue  to  the  element  of 
strength  which  exists  in  his  accustomed  form  of  belief, 
the  perception  of  the  contrast  between  that  and  the 
non-essential  accretions  will  grow  up  in  his  mind  spon- 
taneously, thus  gradually  bringing  him  out  into  a  wider 


no       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

and  freer  atmosphere.  In  going  through  such  a  process 
as  this,  he  will  never  have  had  his  thoughts  directed 
into  any  channel  to  suggest  separation  from  his 
spiritual  root  and  ground;  but  he  will  learn  that  the 
rooting  and  grounding  in  the  Divine,  which  he  had 
trusted  in  at  first,  were  indeed  true,  but  in  a  sense  far 
fuller,  grander,  and  larger  every  way  than  his  early 
infantile  conception  of  them. 

The  question  is  not  how  far  can  another's  religious 
opinions  stand  the  test  of  a  remorseless  logic,  but  how 
far  do  they  enable  him  to  realise  his  unity  with  Divine 
Spirit?  That  is  the  living  proof  of  the  value  of  his 
opinion  to  himself,  and  no  change  in  his  opinions  can 
be  for  the  better  that  does  not  lead  him  to  a  greater 
recognition  of  the  livingness  of  Divine  Spirit  in  him- 
self. For  any  change  of  opinion  to  indicate  a  forward 
movement,  it  must  proceed  from  our  realising  in  some 
measure  the  true  nature  of  the  life  that  is  already  de- 
veloped in  us.  When  we  see  why  we  are  what  we  are 
now,  then  we  can  look  ahead  and  see  what  the  same 
life  principle  that  has  brought  us  up  to  the  present 
point  is  capable  of  doing  in  the  future.  We  may  not 
see  very  far  ahead,  but  we  shall  see  where  the  next 
step  is  to  be  placed,  and  that  is  sufficient  to  enable 
us  to  move  on. 

What  we  have  to  do,  therefore,  is  to  help  others  to 
grow  from  the  root  they  are  already  living  by,  and 
not  to  dig  their  roots  up  and  leave  them  to  wither.  We 
need  not  be  afraid  of  making  ourselves  all  things  to  all 


Religious  Opinions  m 

men,  in  the  sense  of  fixing  upon  the  affirmative  ele- 
ments in  each  one's  creed  as  the  starting-point  of  our 
work,  for  the  affirmative  and  life-giving  is  always  true, 
and  Truth  is  always  one  and  consistent  with  itself ;  and 
therefore  we  need  never  fear  being  inconsistent  so  long 
as  we  adhere  to  this  method.  It  is  worse  than  useless 
to  waste  time  in  dissecting  the  negative  accretions  of 
other  people's  beliefs.  In  doing  so  we  run  great  risks 
of  rooting  up  the  wheat  along  with  the  tares,  and  we 
shall  certainly  succeed  in  brushing  people  up  the  wrong 
way;  moreover,  by  looking  out  exclusively  for  the  life- 
giving  and  affirmative  elements,  we  shall  reap  benefit 
to  ourselves.  We  shall  not  only  keep  our  temper,  but 
we  shall  often  find  large  reserves  of  affirmative  power 
where  at  first  we  had  apprehended  nothing  but  worth- 
less accumulations,  and  thus  we  shall  become  gainers 
both  in  largeness  of  mind  and  in  stores  of  valuable 
material. 

Of  course  we  must  be  rigidly  unyielding  as  regards 
the  essence  of  Truth — that  must  never  be  sacrificed — 
but  as  representatives,  in  however  small  a  sphere,  of 
the  New  Thought,  we  should  make  it  our  aim  to  show 
others,  not  that  their  religion  is  wrong,  but  that  all 
they  may  find  of  life-givingness  in  it  is  life-giving  be- 
cause it  is  part  of  the  One  Truth  which  is  always  the 
same  under  whatever  form  expressed.  As  half  a  loaf 
is  better  than  no  bread,  so  ignorant  worship  is  better 
than  no  worship,  and  ignorant  faith  is  better  than  no 
faith.  Our  work  is  not  to  destroy  this  faith  and  this 


H2       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

worship,  but  to  lead  them  on  into  a  clearer  light. 
For  this  reason  we  may  assure  all  inquirers  that  the 
abandonment  of  their  customary  form  of  worship  is  no 
necessity  of  the  New  Thought;  but,  on  the  contrary, 
that  the  principles  of  the  movement,  correctly  under- 
stood, will  show  them  far  more  meaning  in  that  wor- 
ship than  they  have  ever  yet  realised.  Truth  is  one; 
and  when  once  the  truth  which  underlies  the  outward 
form  is  clearly  understood,  the  maintenance  or  aban- 
donment of  the  latter  will  be  found  to  be  a  matter 
of  personal  feeling  as  to  what  form,  or  absence  of 
form,  best  enables  the  particular  individual  to  realise 
the  Truth  itself. 


XIII 
A  LESSON  FROM  BROWNING 

PERHAPS  you  know  a  little  poem  of  Browning's  called 
"An  Epistle  Containing  the  Strange  Medical  Experi- 
ences of  Karshish,  the  Arab  Physician."  The  some- 
what weird  conception  is  that  the  Arab  physician, 
travelling  in  Palestine  soon  after  the  date  when  the 
Gospel  narrative  closes,  meets  with  Lazarus  whom 
Jesus  raised  from  the  dead,  and  in  this  letter  to  a 
medical  friend  describes  the  strange  effect  which  his 
vision  of  the  other  life  has  produced  upon  the  resus- 
citated man.  The  poem  should  be  studied  as  a  whole ; 
but  for  the  present  a  few  lines  selected  here  and  there 
must  do  duty  to  indicate  the  character  of  the  change 
which  has  passed  upon  Lazarus.  After  comparing 
him  to  a  beggar  who,  having  suddenly  received  bound- 
less wealth,  is  unable  to  regulate  its  use  to  his  require- 
ments, Karshish  continues : — 

"So  here — we  call  the  treasure  knowledge,  say, 
Increased  beyond  the  fleshly  faculty — 
Heaven  opened  to  a  soul  while  yet  on  earth, 
Earth  forced  on  a  soul's  use  while  seeing  heaven : 
The  man  is  witless  of  the  size,  the  sum, 
The  value  in  proportion  of  all  things." 
113 


114       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 
In  fact  he  has  become  almost  exclusively  conscious  of 

"The  spiritual  life  around  the  earthly  life : 

The  law  of  that  is  known  to  him  as  this, 

His  heart  and  brain  move  there,  his  feet  stay  here," 

and  the  result  is  a  loss  of  mental  balance  entirely  un- 
fitting him  for  the  affairs  of  ordinary  life. 

Now  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Browning  had  a  far 
more  serious  intention  in  writing  this  poem  than  just 
to  record  a  fantastic  notion  that  flitted  through  his 
brain.  If  we  read  between  the  lines,  it  must  be  clear 
from  the  general  tenor  of  his  writings  that,  however 
he  may  have  acquired  it,  Browning  had  a  very  deep 
acquaintance  with  the  inner  region  of  spiritual  causes 
which  give  rise  to  all  that  we  see  of  outward  phenom- 
enal manifestation.  There  are  continual  allusions  in 
his  works  to  the  life  behind  the  veil,  and  it  is  to  this 
suggestion  of  some  mystery  underlying  his  words  that 
we  owe  the  many  attempts  to  fathom  his  meaning 
expressed  through  Browning  Societies  and  the  like — 
attempts  which  fail  or  succeed  according  as  they  are 
made  from  "the  without"  or  from  "the  within."  No 
one  was  better  qualified  than  the  poet  to  realise  the 
immense  benefits  of  the  inner  knowledge,  and  for  the 
same  reason  he  is  also  qualified  to  warn  us  of  the  dan- 
gers on  the  way  to  its  acquisition;  for  nowhere  is  it 
more  true  that 

"A  little  knowledge  is  a  dangerous  thing/* 


A  Lesson  from  Browning  115 

and  it  is  one  of  the  greatest  of  these  dangers  that  he 
points  out  in  this  poem. 

Under  the  figure  of  Lazarus  he  describes  the  man 
who  has  practically  grasped  the  reality  of  the  inner 
side  of  things,  for  whom  the  veil  has  been  removed, 
and  who  knows  that  the  external  and  visible  takes  its 
rise  from  the  internal  and  spiritual.  But  the  descrip- 
tion is  that  of  one  whose  eyes  have  been  so  dazzled 
by  the  light  that  he  has  lost  the  power  of  accommo- 
dating his  vision  to  the  world  of  sense.  He  now 
commits  the  same  error  from  the  side  of  "the  within" 
that  he  formerly  committed  from  the  side  of  "the 
without,"  the  error  of  supposing  that  there  is  no  vital 
reality  in  the  aspect  of  things  on  which  his  thoughts 
are  not  immediately  centered.  This  is  want  of  mental 
balance,  whether  it  shows  itself  by  refusing  reality  to 
the  inward  or  the  outward.  To  be  so  absorbed  in 
speculative  ideas  as  to  be  unable  to  give  them  practical 
application  in  daily  life,  is  to  allow  our  highest 
thoughts  to  evaporate  in  dreams. 

There  is  a  world  of  philosophy  in  the  simple  state- 
ment that  there  can  be  no  inside  without  an  outside, 
and  no  outside  without  an  inside ;  and  the  great  secret 
in  life  is  in  learning  to  see  things  in  their  wholeness, 
and  to  realise  the  inside  and  the  outside  simultaneously. 
Each  of  them  without  the  other  is  a  mere  abstraction, 
having  no  real  existence,  which  we  contemplate  sepa- 
rately only  for  the  purpose  of  reviewing  the  logical 


Ii6       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

steps  by  which  they  are  connected  together  as  cause 
and  effect.  Nature  does  not  separate  them,  for  they 
are  inseparable;  and  the  law  of  nature  is  the  law  of 
life.  It  is  related  of  Pythagoras  that,  after  he  had 
led  his  scholars  to  the  dizziest  heights  of  the  inner 
knowledge,  he  never  failed  to  impress  upon  them  the 
converse  lesson  of  tracing  out  the  steps  by  which 
these  inner  principles  translate  themselves  into  the 
familiar  conditions  of  the  outward  things  by  which 
we  are  surrounded.  The  process  of  analysis  is  merely 
an  expedient  for  discovering  what  springs  in  the  realm 
of  causes  we  are  to  touch  in  order  to  produce  certain 
effects  in  the  realm  of  manifestation.  But  this  is  not 
sufficient.  We  must  also  learn  to  calculate  how  those 
particular  effects,  when  produced,  will  stand  related 
to  the  world  of  already  existing  effects  among  which 
we  propose  to  launch  them,  how  they  will  modify  these 
and  be  modified  by  these  in  turn ;  and  this  calculation 
of  effects  is  as  necessary  as  the  knowledge  of  causes. 
We  cannot  impress  upon  ourselves  too  strongly  that 
reality  consists  of  both  an  inside  and  an  outside,  a  gen- 
erating principle  and  a  generated  condition,  and  that 
anything  short  of  the  reality  of  wholeness  is  illusion 
on  one  side  or  the  other.  Nothing  could  have  been 
further  from  Browning's  intention  than  to  deter  seek- 
ers after  truth  from  studying  the  principles  of  Being, 
for  without  the  knowledge  of  them  truth  must  always 
remain  wrapped  in  mystery;  but  the  lesson  he  would 
impress  on  us  is  that  of  guarding  vigilantly  the  mental 


A  Lesson  from  Browning  117 

equilibrium  which  alone  will  enable  us  to  develop  those 
boundless  powers  whose  infinite  unfolding  is  the  ful- 
ness of  Life.  And  we  must  remember  above  all  that 
the  soul  of  life  is  Love,  and  that  Love  shows  itself 
by  service,  and  service  proceeds  from  sympathy,  which 
is  the  capacity  for  seeing  things  from  the  point  of  view 
of  those  whom  we  would  help,  while  at  the  same  time 
seeing  them  also  in  their  true  relations ;  and  therefore, 
if  we  would  realise  that  Love  which  is  the  inmost 
vitalising  principle  even  of  the  most  interior"  powers, 
it  must  be  kept  alive  by  maintaining  our  hold  upon 
the  exterior  life  as  being  equally  real  with  the  inward 
principles  of  which  it  is  the  manifestation. 
1902. 


XIV 
THE  SPIRIT  OF  OPULENCE 

IT  is  quite  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  we  must  restrict 
and  stint  ourselves  in  order  to  develop  greater  power 
or  usefulness.  This  is  to  form  the  conception  of  the 
Divine  Power  as  so  limited  that  the  best  use  we  can 
make  of  it  is  by  a  policy  of  self-starvation,  whether 
material  or  mental.  Of  course,  if  we  believe  that  some 
form  of  self-starvation  is  necessary  to  our  producing 
good  work,  then  so  long  as  we  entertain  this  belief 
the  fact  actually  is  so  for  us.  "Whatsoever  is  not  of 
faith" — that  is,  not  in  accordance  with  our  honest 
belief — "is  sin";  and  by  acting  contrary  to  what  we 
really  believe  we  bring  in  a  suggestion  of  opposition 
to  the  Divine  Spirit,  which  must  necessarily  paralyse 
our  efforts,  and  surround  us  with  a  murky  atmosphere 
of  distrust  and  want  of  joy. 

But  all  this  exists  in,  and  is  produced  by,  our  belief; 
and  when  we  come  to  examine  the  grounds  of  this  be- 
lief we  shall  find  that  it  rests  upon  an  entire  misappre- 
hension of  the  nature  of  our  own  power.  If  we 
clearly  realise  that  the  creative  power  in  ourselves  is 
unlimited,  then  there  is  no  reason  for  limiting  the 

118 


\ 
The  Spirit  of  Opulence  119 

extent  to  which  we  may  enjoy  what  we  can  create 
by  means  of  it.  Where  we  are  drawing  from  the 
infinite  we  need  never  be  afraid  of  taking  more  than 
our  share.  That  is  not  where  the  danger  lies.  The 
danger  is  in  not  sufficiently  realising  our  own  richness, 
and  in  looking  upon  the  externalised  products  of  our 
creative  power  as  being  the  true  riches  instead  of  the 
creative  power  of  spirit  itself. 

If  we  avoid  this  error,  there  is  no  need  to  limit  our- 
selves in  taking  what  we  will  from  the  infinite  store- 
house :  "All  things  are  yours."  And  the  way  to  avoid 
this  error  is  by  realising  that  the  true  wealth  is  in 
identifying  ourselves  with  the  spirit  of  opulence.  We 
must  be  opulent  in  our  thought.  Do  not  "think 
money,"  as  such,  for  it  is  only  one  means  of  opulence; 
but  think  opulence,  that  is,  largely,  generously,  liber- 
ally, and  you  will  find  that  the  means  of  realising  this 
thought  will  flow  to  you  from  all  quarters,  whether  as 
money  or  as  a  hundred  other  things  not  to  be  reck- 
oned in  cash. 

We  must  not  make  ourselves  dependent  on  any 
particular  form  of  wealth,  or  insist  on  its  coming  to 
us  through  some  particular  channel — that  is  at  once 
to  impose  a  limitation,  and  to  shut  out  other  forms  of 
wealth  and  to  close  other  channels ;  but  we  must  enter 
into  the  spirit  of  it.  Now  the  spirit  is  Life,  and 
throughout  the  universe  Life  ultimately  consists  in 
circulation,  whether  within  the  physical  body  of  the 
individual  or  on  the  scale  of  the  entire  solar  system; 


I2O       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

and  circulation  means  a  continual  flowing  around, 
and  the  spirit  of  opulence  is  no  exception  to  this  uni- 
versal law  of  all  life. 

When  once  this  principle  becomes  clear  to  us  we 
shall  see  that  our  attention  should  be  directed  rather 
to  the  giving  than  the  receiving.  We  must  look  upon 
ourselves,  not  as  misers'  chests  to  be  kept  locked  for 
our  own  benefit,  but  as  centres  of  distribution;  and 
the  better  we  fulfil  our  function  as  such  centres  the 
greater  will  be  the  corresponding  inflow.  If  we  choke 
the  outlet  the  current  must  slacken,  and  a  full  and  free 
flow  can  be  obtained  only  by  keeping  it  open.  The 
spirit  of  opulence — the  opulent  mode  of  thought,  that 
is — consists  in  cultivating  the  feeling  that  we  possess 
all  sorts  of  riches  which  we  can  bestow  upon  others, 
and  which  we  can  bestow  liberally  because  by  this  very 
action  we  open  the  way  for  still  greater  supplies  to 
flow  in.  But  you  say,  "I  am  short  of  money,  I  hardly 
know  how  to  pay  for  necessaries.  What  have  I  to 
give?" 

The  answer  is  that  we  must  always  start  from  the 
point  where  we  are ;  and  if  your  wealth  at  the  present 
moment  is  not  abundant  on  the  material  plane,  you 
need  not  trouble  to  start  on  that  plane.  There  are 
other  sorts  of  wealth,  still  more  valuable,  on  the 
spiritual  and  intellectual  planes,  which  you  can  give; 
and  you  can  start  from  this  point  and  practise  the 
spirit  of  opulence,  even  though  your  balance  at  the 
bank  may  be  nil.  And  then  the  universal  law  of  attrac- 


The  Spirit  of  Opulence  121 

tion  will  begin  to  assert  itself.  You  will  not  only 
begin  to  experience  an  inflow  on  the  spiritual  and 
intellectual  planes,  but  it  will  extend  itself  to  the 
material  plane  also. 

If  you  have  realised  the  spirit  of  opulence  you  can- 
not ]ielp  drawing  to  yourself  material  good,  as  well  as 
that  higher  wealth  which  is  not  to  be  measured  by  a 
money  standard;  and  because  you  truly  understand 
the  spirit  of  opulence  you  will  neither  affect  to  despise 
this  form  of  good,  nor  will  you  attribute  to  it  a  value 
that  does  not  belong  to  it;  but  you  will  co-ordinate 
it  with  your  other  more  interior  forms  of  wealth  so 
as  to  make  it  the  material  instrument  in  smoothing 
the  way  for  their  more  perfect  expression.  Used 
thus,  with  understanding  of  the  relation  which  it  bears 
to  spiritual  and  intellectual  wealth,  material  wealth 
becomes  one  with  them,  and  is  no  more  to  be  shunned 
and  feared  than  it  is  to  be  sought  for  its  own  sake. 

It  is  not  money,  but  the  love  of  money,  that  is  the 
root  of  evil ;  and  the  spirit  of  opulence  is  precisely  the 
attitude  of  mind  which  is  furthest  removed  from  the 
love  of  money  for  its  own  sake.  It  does  not  believe  in 
money.  What  it  does  believe  in  is  the  generous  feel- 
ing which  is  the  intuitive  recognition  of  the  great  law 
of  circulation,  which  does  not  in  any  undertaking 
make  its  first  question,  How  much  am  I  going  to  get 
by  it?  but,  How  much  am  I  going  to  do  by  it?  And 
making  this  the  first  question,  the  getting  will  flow  in 
with  a  generous  profusion,  and  with  a  spontaneousness 


122       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

and  Tightness  of  direction  that  are  absent  when  our 
first  thought  is  of  receiving  only. 

We  are  not  called  upon  to  give  what  we  have  not  yet 
got  and  to  run  into  debt;  but  we  are  to  give  liberally 
of  what  we  have,  with  the  knowledge  that  by  so  doing 
we  are  setting  the  law  of  circulation  to  work,  and  as 
this  law  brings  us  greater  and  greater  inflows  of  every 
kind  of  good,  so  our  out-giving  will  increase,  not  by 
depriving  ourselves  of  any  expansion  of  our  own  life 
that  we  may  desire,  but  by  rinding  that  every  expansion 
makes  us  the  more  powerful  instruments  for  expanding 
the  life  of  others.  "Live  and  let  live"  is  the  motto  of 
the  true  opulence. 


XV 
BEAUTY 

Do  we  sufficiently  direct  our  thoughts  to  the  subject 
of  Beauty?  I  think  not.  We  are  too  apt  to  regard 
Beauty  as  a  merely  superficial  thing,  and  do  not  realise 
all  that  it  implies.  This  was  not  the  case  with  the 
great  thinkers  of  the  ancient  world — see  the  place 
which  no  less  a  one  than  Plato  gives  to  Beauty  as  the 
expression  of  all  that  is  highest  and  greatest  in  the 
system  of  the  universe.  These  great  men  of  old  were 
no  superficial  thinkers,  and,  therefore,  would  never 
have  elevated  to  the  supreme  place  that  which  is  only 
superficial.  Therefore,  we  shall  do  well  to  ask  what 
it  is  that  these  great  minds  found  in  the  idea  of  Beauty 
which  made  it  thus  appeal  to  them  as  the  most  perfect 
outward  expression  of  all  that  lies  deepest  in  the  funda- 
mental laws  of  Being.  It  is  because,  rightly  appre- 
hended, Beauty  represents  the  supremest  living  quality 
of  Thought.  It  is  the  glorious  overflowing  of  fulness 
of  Love  which  indicates  the  presence  of  infinite  re- 
serves of  Power  behind  it.  It  is  the  joyous  profusion 
that  shows  the  possession  of  inexhaustible  stores  of 
wealth  which  can  afford  to  be  thus  lavish  and  yet 

123 


124       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

remain  as  exhaustless  as  before.    Read  aright,  Beauty 
is  the  index  to  the  whole  nature  of  Being. 

Beauty  is  the  externalisation  of  Harmony,  and  Har- 
mony is  the  co-ordinated  working  of  all  the  powers  of 
Being,  both  in  the  individual  and  in  the  relation  of  the 
individual  to  the  Infinite  from  which  it  springs;  and 
therefore  this  Harmony  conducts  us  at  once  into  the 
presence  of  the  innermost  undifferentiated  Life.  Thus 
Beauty  is  in  most  immediate  touch  with  the  very  ar- 
canum of  Life;  it  is  the  brightness  of  glory  spreading 
itself  over  the  sanctuary  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  For  if, 
viewed  from  without,  Beauty  is  the  province  of  the 
artist  and  the  poet,  and  lays  hold  of  our  emotions  and 
appeals  directly  to  the  innermost  feelings  of  our  heart, 
calling  up  the  response  of  that  within  us  which  recog- 
nises itself  in  the  harmony  perceived  without,  this  is 
only  because  it  speeds  across  the  bridge  of  Reason  with 
such  quick  feet  that  we  pass  from  the  outmost  to  the 
inmost  and  back  again  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye;  but 
the  bridge  is  still  there  and,  retracing  our  steps  more 
leisurely,  we  shall  find  that,  viewed  from  within, 
Beauty  is  no  less  the  province  of  the  calm  reasoner 
and  analyst.  What  the  poet  and  the  artist  seize  upon 
intuitionally,  he  elaborates  gradually,  but  the  result  is 
the  same  in  both  cases;  for  no  intuition  is  true  which 
does  not  admit  of  being  expanded  into  a  rational  se- 
quence of  intelligible  factors,  and  no  argument  is  true 
which  does  not  admit  of  being  condensed  into  that 
rapid  suggestion  which  is  intuition. 


Beauty  125 

Thus  the  impassioned  artist  and  the  calm  thinker 
both  find  that  the  only  true  Beauty  proceeds  naturally 
from  the  actual  construction  of  that  which  it  expresses. 
It  is  not  something  added  on  as  an  afterthought,  but 
something  pre-existing  in  the  original  idea,  something 
to  which  that  idea  naturally  leads  up,  and  which  pre- 
supposes that  idea  as  affording  it  any  raison  d'etre. 
The  test  of  Beauty  is,  What  does  it  express?  Is  it 
merely  a  veneer,  a  coat  of  paint  laid  on  from  without  ? 
Then  it  is  indeed  nothing  but  a  whited  sepulchre,  a 
covering  to  hide  the  vacuity  or  deformity  which  needs 
to  be  removed.  But  is  it  the  true  and  natural  outcome 
of  what  is  beneath  the  surface?  Then  it  is  the  index 
to  superabounding  Life  and  Love  and  Intelligence, 
which  is  not  content  with  mere  utilitarianism  hasting 
to  escape  at  the  earliest  possible  point  from  the  labour 
of  construction,  as  though  from  an  enforced  and  un- 
welcome task,  but  rejoicing  over  its  work  and  unwill- 
ing to  quit  it  until  it  has  expressed  this  rejoicing  in 
every  fittest  touch  of  form  and  colour  and  exquisite 
proportion  that  the  material  will  admit  of,  and  this 
without  departing  by  a  hairbreadth  from  the  original 
purpose  of  the  design. 

Wherever,  therefore,  we  find  Beauty,  we  may  infer 
an  enormous  reserve  of  Power  behind  it;  in  fact,  we 
may  look  upon  it  as  the  visible  expression  of  the  great 
truth  that  Life-Power  is  infinite.  And  when  the  inner 
meaning  of  Beauty  is  thus  revealed  to  us,  and  we  learn 
to  know  it  as  the  very  fulness  and  overflowing  of 


126       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

Power,  we  shall  find  that  we  have  gained  a  new 
standard  for  the  guidance  of  our  own  lives.  We  must 
begin  to  use  this  wonderful  process  which  we  have 
learnt  from  Nature.  Having  learnt  how  Nature  works 
— how  God  works — we  must  begin  to  work  in  like 
manner,  and  never  consider  any  work  complete  until 
we  have  carried  it  to  some  final  outcome  of  Beauty, 
whether  material,  intellectual,  or  spiritual.  Is  my  in- 
tention good?  That  is  the  initial  question,  for  the 
intention  determines  the  nature  of  the  essence  in  every- 
thing. What  is  the  most  beautiful  form  in  which  I 
can  express  the  good  I  intend?  That  is  the  ultimate 
question ;  for  the  true  Beauty  which  our  work  expresses 
is  the  measure  of  the  Power,  Intelligence,  Love — in  a 
word,  of  the  quantity  and  quality  of  our  own  life  which 
we  have  put  into  it.  True  Beauty,  mind  you — that 
which  is  beautiful  because  it  most  perfectly  expresses 
the  original  idea,  not  a  mere  ornamentation  occupy- 
ing our  thoughts  as  a  thing  apart  from  the  use  intended. 
Nothing  is  of  so  small  account  but  it  has  its  fullest 
power  of  expression  in  some  form  of  Beauty  peculiarly 
its  own.  Beauty  is  the  law  of  perfect  Thought,  be 
the  subject  of  our  Thought  some  scheme  affecting  the 
welfare  of  millions,  or  a  word  spoken  to  a  little  child. 
True  Beauty  and  true  Power  are  the  correlatives  one 
of  the  other.  Kindly  expression  originates  in  kindly 
thought;  and  kindly  expression  is  the  essence  of 
Beauty,  which,  seeking  to  express  itself  ever  more 
and  more  perfectly,  becomes  that  fine  touch  of  sym- 


Beauty  127 

pathy  which  is  artistic  skill,  whether  applied  in  work- 
ing upon  material  substances  or  upon  the  emotions  of 
the  heart.  But,  remember,  first  Use,  then  Beauty,  and 
neither  complete  without  the  other.  Use  without 
Beauty  is  ungracious  giving,  and  Beauty  without  Use 
is  humbug;  never  forgetting,  however,  that  there  is  a 
region  of  the  mind  where  the  use  is  found  in  the 
beauty,  where  Beauty  itself  serves  the  direct  purpose 
of  raising  us  to  see  a  higher  ideal  which  will  thence- 
forward permeate  our  lives,  giving  a  more  living 
quality  to  all  we  think  and  say  and  do. 

Seen  thus  the  Beautiful  is  the  true  expression  of  the 
Good.  From  whichever  end  of  the  scale  we  look  we 
shall  find  that  they  accurately  measure  each  other. 
They  are  the  same  thing  in  the  outermost  and  the 
innermost  respectively.  But  in  our  search  for  a  higher 
Beauty  than  we  have  yet  found  we  must  beware  of 
missing  the  Beauty  that  already  exists.  Perfect  har- 
mony with  its  environment,  and  perfect  expression  of 
its  own  inward  nature  are  what  constitute  Beauty; 
and  our  ignorance  of  the  nature  of  the  thing  or  its 
environment  may  shut  our  eyes  to  the  Beauty  it  already 
has.  It  takes  the  genius  of  a  Millet  to  paint,  or  a 
Whitman  in  words,  to  show  us  the  beauty  of  those 
ordinary  work-a-day  figures  with  which  our  world  is 
for  the  most  part  peopled,  whose  originals  we  pass 
by  as  having  no  form  or  comeliness.  Assuredly  the 
mission  of  every  thinking  man  and  woman  is  to  help 
build  up  forms  of  greater  beauty,  spiritual,  intellectual, 


128       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

material,  everywhere;  but  if  we  would  make  something 
grander  than  Watteau  gardens  or  Dresden  china  shep- 
herdesses, we  must  enter  the  great  realistic  school  of 
Nature  and  learn  to  recognise  the  beauty  that  already 
surrounds  us,  although  it  may  have  a  little  dirt  on  the 
surface.  Then,  when  we  have  learnt  the  great  prin- 
ciples of  Beauty  from  the  All-Spirit  which  is  it,  we 
shall  know  how  to  develop  the  Beauty  on  its  own  proper 
lines  without  perpetuating  the  dirt ;  and  we  shall  know 
that  all  Beauty  is  the  expression  of  Living  Power,  and 
that  we  can  measure  our  power  by  the  degree  of  beauty 
into  which  we  can  transform  it,  rendering  our  lives, 

"By  loveliness  of  perfect  deeds, 
More  strong  than  all  poetic  thought." 


XVI 

SEPARATION  AND  UNITY 


"THE  prince  of  this  world  cometh,  and  hath  nothing 
in  Me"  (John  xiv,  30).  In  these  words  the  Grand 
Master  of  Divine  Science  gives  us  the  key  to  the 
Great  Knowledge.  Comparison  with  other  passages 
shows  that  the  terms  here  rendered  "prince"  and 
"world"  can  equally  be  rendered  "principle"  and  "age." 
Jesus  is  here  speaking  of  a  principle  of  the  present  age 
so  entirely  opposed  to  that  principle  of  which  he  him- 
self was  the  visible  expression,  as  to  have  no  part  in 
him.  It  is  the  utter  contradiction  of  everything  that 
Jesus  came  to  teach  and  to  exemplify.  The  account 
Jesus  gave  of  himself  was  that  he  came  "to  bear  wit- 
ness to  the  Truth,"  and  in  order  that  men  "might 
have  life,  and  that  they  might  have  it  more  abundant- 
ly" ;  consequently  the  principle  to  which  he  refers  must 
be  the  exact  opposite  of  Truth  and  Life — that  is,  it 
must  be  the  principle  of  Falsehood  and  Death. 

What,  then,  is  this  false  and  destructive  principle 
which  rules  the  present  age?    If  we  consider  the  gist 

129 


130       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

of  the  entire  discourse  of  which  these  are  the  conclud- 
ing words,  we  shall  find  that  the  central  idea  which 
Jesus  has  been  most  strenuously  endeavouring  to  im- 
press upon  his  disciples  at  their  last  meeting  before 
the  crucifixion,  is  that  of  the  absolute  identity  and 
out-and-out  oneness  of  "the  Father"  and  "the  Son," 
the  principle  of  the  perfect  unity  of  God  and  Man. 
If  this,  then,  was  the  great  Truth  which  he  was  thus 
earnestly  solicitous  to  impress  upon  his  disciples'  minds 
when  his  bodily  presence  was  so  shortly  to  be  removed 
from  them — the  Truth  of  Unity — may  we  not  reason- 
ably infer  the  opposing  falsehood  to  be  the  assertion  of 
separateness,  the  assertion  that  God  and  man  are  not 
one?  The  idea  of  separateness  is  precisely  the  prin- 
ciple on  which  the  world  has  proceeded  from  that  day 
to  this — the  assumption  that  God  and  man  are  not  one 
in  being,  and  that  the  matter  is  of  a  different  essence 
from  spirit.  In  other  words,  the  principle  that  finds 
favour  with  the  intellectuality  of  the  present  age  is 
that  of  duality — the  idea  of  two  powers  and  two  sub- 
stances opposite  in  kind,  and,  therefore,  repugnant  to 
each  other,  permeating  all  things,  and  so  leaving  no 
wholeness  anywhere. 

The  entire  object  of  the  Bible  is  to  combat  the  idea 
of  two  opposing  forces  in  the  world.  The  good  news 
is  said  to  be  that  of  "reconciliation"  (2  Cor.  v.  18), 
where  also  we  are  told  that  "all  things  are  from  God," 
hence  leaving  no  room  for  any  other  power  or  any 
other  substance;  and  the  great  falsehood,  which  it  is 


I 

Separation  and  Unity  131 

the  purpose  of  the  Good  News  to  expose,  is  every- 
where in  the  Bible  proclaimed  to  be  the  suggestion  of 
duality,  which  is  some  other  mode  of  Life,  that  is  not 
the  One  Life,  but  something  separate  from  it — an  idea 
which  it  is  impossible  to  state  distinctly  without  in- 
volving a  contradiction  in  terms.  Everywhere  the 
Bible  exposes  the  fiction  of  the  duality  of  separation 
as  the  great  lie,  but  nowhere  in  so  emphatic  and  con- 
centrated a  manner  as  in  that  wonderful  passage  of 
Revelations  where  it  is  figured  in  the  mysterious  Num- 
ber of  the  Beast.  "He  that  hath  understanding  let  him 
count  the  number  of  the  Beast  .  .  .  and  his  number 
is  six  hundred  and  sixty  and  six"  (Rev.  xiii,  18,  R.V.). 
Let  me  point  out  the  great  principle  expressed  in  this 
mysterious  number.  It  has  other  more  particular  ap- 
plications, but  this  one  general  principle  underlies 
them  all. 

It  is  an  established  maxim  that  every  unity  contains 
in  itself  a  trinity,  just  as  the  individual  man  consists 
of  body,  soul,  and  spirit.  If  we  would  perfectly  un- 
derstand anything,  we  must  be  able  to  comprehend  it 
in  its  threefold  nature;  therefore  in  symbolic  numer- 
ation the  multiplying  of  the  unit  by  three  implies  the 
completeness  of  that  for  which  the  unit  stands;  and, 
again,  the  threefold  repetition  of  a  number  represents 
its  extension  to  infinity.  Now  mark  what  results  if  we 
apply  these  representative  methods  of  numerical  ex- 
pression to  the  principles  of  Oneness  and  of  separate- 
ness  respectively.  Oneness  is  Unity,  and  1X3—3, 


132       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

which,  intensified  to  its  highest  expression,  is  written 
as  333.  Now  apply  the  same  method  to  the  idea  of 
separateness.  Separateness  consists  of  one  and  an- 
other one,  each  of  which,  according  to  the  universal 
law,  contains  a  trinity.  In  this  view  of  duality  the 
totality  of  things  is  two,  and  2X3=6,  and,  intensify- 
ing this  to  its  highest  expression,  we  get  666,  which  is 
the  Number  of  the  Beast. 

Why  of  the  Beast  ?  Because  separateness  from  God, 
or  the  duality  of  opposition,  which  is  also  a  duality  of 
polarity,  which  is  Dual-Unity,  recognises  something 
as  having  essential  being,  which  is  not  the  One  Spirit ; 
and  such  a  conception  can  be  verbally  rendered  only 
by  some  word  that  in  common  acceptance  represents 
something,  not  only  lower  than  the  divine,  but  lower 
than  the  human  also.  It  is  because  the  conception  of 
oneself  as  a  being  apart  from  God,  if  carried  out  to 
its  legitimate  consequences,  must  ultimately  land  all 
who  hold  it  in  a  condition  of  things  where  open  ferocity 
or  secret  cunning,  the  tiger  nature  or  the  serpent  na- 
ture, can  be  the  only  possible  rule  of  action. 

Thus  it  is  that  the  principle  of  the  present  age  can 
have  no  part  in  that  principle  of  Perfect  Wholeness 
which  the  Great  Master  embodied  in  His  teaching  and 
in  Himself.  The  two  ideas  are  absolutely  incompati- 
ble, and  whichever  we  adopt  as  our  leading  principle, 
it  must  be  to  the  entire  exclusion  0f  the  other;  we 
cannot  serve  God  and  Mammon.  There  is  no  such 
thing  as  partial  wholeness.  Either  we  are  still  in  the 


Separation  and  Unity  133 

principle  of  Separateness,  and  our  eyes  are  not  yet 
open  to  the  real  nature  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven; 
or  else  we  have  grasped  the  principle  of  Unity  without 
any  exception  anywhere,  and  the  One  Being  includes 
all,  the  body  and  the  soul  alike,  the  visible  form  and 
the  invisible  substance  and  life  of  all  equally;  nothing 
can  be  left  out,  and  we  stand  complete  here  and  now, 
lacking  no  faculty,  but  requiring  only  to  become  con- 
scious of  our  own  powers,  and  to  learn  to  have  confi- 
dence in  them  through  "having  them  exercised  by 
reason  of  use." 

The  following  communication  from  "A  Foreign 
Reader,"  commenting  on  the  Number  of  the  Beast, 
as  treated  by  Judge  Troward  in  "Separation  and  Uni- 
ty," is  taken  from  EXPRESSION  for  1902,  in  which 
it  was  first  published.  Following  is  Judge  Troward' s 
reply  to  this  letter. 

Dear  Mr.  Editor. — A  correspondent  in  the  current  num- 
ber of  Expression  points  out  the  reference  in  the  Book 
of  Revelation  to  the  number  666  as  the  mark  of  the  Beast, 
because  the  trinity  of  mind,  soul,  and  body,  if  consid- 
ered as  unity,  may  be  expressed  by  the  figures  333,  and 
therefore  duality  is  333  X  2  =  666. 

I  think  the  inverse  of  the  proposition  is  still  more 
startling,  and  I  should  like  to  point  it  out.  Instead  of 
multiplying  let  us  try  dividing.  First  of  all  take  unity 
as  the  unit  one  and  divide  by  three  (representing  of 
course  the  same  formula,  viz.,  mind,  soul  and  body). 
Expressed  by  a  common  fraction  it  is  merely  1/3,  which 
is  an  incomplete  mathematical  figure.  But  take  the  deci- 


134       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

mal  formula  of  one  divided  by  three,  and  we  arrive  at 
.3  circulating,  i.  e.,  .3333  on  to  infinity.  In  other  words, 
the  result  of  the  proposition  by  mathematics  is  that  you 
divide  this  formula  of  spirit,  soul,  and  body  into  unity, 
and  it  remains  true  to  itself  ad  infinitum. 

Now  we  come  to  consider  it  as  a  duality  in  the  same 
way.  Expressed  as  a  vulgar  fraction  it  is  2/3 ;  but  as  a 
decimal  fraction  it  is  .6666  ad  infinitum.  I  think  this  is 
worth  noting. 

Yours  very  faithfully, 

A  Foreign  Reader. 

Brussels,  Aug.  14,  1902. 

Dear  Editor. — I  return  with  many  thanks  the  very 
interesting  letter  received  with  yours,  and  I  am  very  glad 
that  my  article  should  have  been  instrumental  in  drawing 
forth  this  further  light  on  the  subject. 

This,  moreover,  affords  an  excellent  illustration  of  one 
great  principle  of  Unity,  which  is  that  the  Unity  repeats 
itself  in  every  one  of  its  parts,  so  that  each  part  taken 
separately  is  an  exact  reproduction  (in  principles)  of  the 
greater  Unity  of  which  it  is  a  portion.  Therefore,  if  you 
take  the  individual  man  as  your  unit  (which  is  what  I 
did),  and  proceed  by  multiplication,  you  get  the  results 
which  were  pointed  out  in  my  article.  And  conversely,  if 
you  take  the  Great  Unity  of  All-Being  as  your  unit,  and 
proceed  by  division,  you  arrive  at  the  result  shown  by 
your  foreign  correspondent.  The  principle  is  a  purely 
mathematical  one,  and  is  extremely  interesting  in  the 
present  application  as  showing  the  existence  of  a  system 
of  concealed  mathematics  running  through  the  whole 
Bible.  This  bears  out  what  I  said  in  my  article  that  there 


Separation  and  Unity  135 

were  other  applications  of  the  principle  in  question,  though 
this  one  did  not  at  the  time  occur  to  me. 

I  am  much  indebted  to  your  correspondent  for  the 
further  proof  thus  given  of  the  correctness  of  my  inter- 
pretation of  the  Number  of  the  Beast.  Both  our  inter- 
pretations support  each  other,  for  they  are  merely  differ- 
ent ways  of  stating  the  same  thing,  and  they  have  this 
advantage  over  those  generally  given,  that  they  do  not 
refer  to  any  particular  form  of  evil,  but  express  a  general 
principle  applicable  to  all  alike. 

Yours  sincerely, 

T. 

London,  Aug.  30,  1902. 


II 


It  may  perhaps  emphasize  my  point  if  I  remind  my 
readers  that  it  was  the  conflict  between  the  principles  of 
Unity  and  separation  that  led  to  the  crucifixion  of 
Jesus.  We  must  distinguish  between  the  charge  which 
really  led  to  his  death,  and  the  merely  technical  charge 
on  which  he  was  sentenced  by  the  Roman  Governor. 
The  latter — the  charge  of  opposition  to  the  royal  au- 
thority of  Caesar — has  its  significance;  but  it  is  clear 
from  the  Bible  record  that  this  was  merely  formal,  the 
true  cause  of  conviction  being  contained  in  the  state- 
ment that  of  the  chief  priests :  "We  have  a  law,  and 
by  our  law  he  ought  to  die,  because  he  made  himself 
the  Son  of  God." 

The  antagonism  of  the  two  principles  of  Unity  and 


136       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

separation  had  first  been  openly  manifested  on  the  oc- 
casion when  Jesus  made  the  memorable  declaration, 
"I  and  my  Father  are  one."  The  Jews  took  up  stones 
to  stone  him.  Then  said  Jesus  unto  them,  "Many  good 
works  have  I  shown  you  from  my  Father;  for  which 
of  those  works  do  ye  stone  Me?"  The  Jews  replied, 
"For  a  good  work  we  stone  thee  not;  but  for  blas- 
phemy; and  because  that  thou,  being  a  man,  makest 
thyself  God."  Jesus  said,  "Is  it  not  written  in  your 
law,  I  said  ye  are  gods?  If  He  called  them  gods,  unto 
whom  the  Word  of  God  came  (and  the  Scriptures  can- 
not be  broken),  say  ye  of  him,  whom  the  Father  hath 
sanctified,  and  sent  into  the  world,  thou  blasphemest; 
because  I  said,  I  am  the  Son  of  God?"  Here  we  have 
the  first  open  passage  of  arms  between  the  two  oppos- 
ing principles  which  led  to  the  scene  of  Calvary  as  the 
final  testimony  of  Jesus  to  the  principle  of  Unity.  He 
died  because  he  maintained  the  Truth ;  that  he  was  one 
with  the  Father.  That  was  the  substantive  charge  on 
which  he  was  executed.  "Art  thou  the  son  of  the 
Blessed?"  he  was  asked  by  the  priestly  tribunal;  and 
the  answer  came  clear  and  unequivocal,  "I  am."  Then 
said  the  Council,  "He  hath  spoken  blasphemy,  what 
further  need  have  we  of  witnesses?"  And  they  all 
condemned  him  to  be  worthy  of  death. 

Jesus  did  not  enter  into  a  palpably  useless  argument 
with  judges  whose  minds  were  so  rooted  in  the  idea 
of  dualism  as  to  be  impervious  to  any  other  conception ; 
but  with  a  mixed  multitude,  who  were  not  officially 


Separation  and  Unity  137 

committed  to  a  system,  the  case  was  different.  Among 
them  there  might  be  some  still  open  to  conviction,  and 
the  appeal  was,  therefore,  made  to  a  passage  in  the 
Psalms  with  which  they  were  all  familiar,  pointing  out 
that  the  very  persons  to  whom  the  Divine  word  was 
addressed  were  styled  "gods"  by  the  Divine  Speaker 
Himself.  The  incontrovertibleness  of  the  fact  was 
emphasised  by  the  stress  laid  upon  it  as  "Scripture 
which  cannot  be  broken;"  and  the  meaning  to  be  as- 
signed to  the  statement  was  rendered  clear  by  the 
argument  which  Jesus  deduced  from  it.  He  says  in 
effect,  "You  would  stone  me  as  a  blasphemer  for  saying 
of  myself  what  your  own  Scriptures  say  concerning 
each  of  you."  The  claim  of  unity  with  "the  Father," 
he  urges,  was  no  unique  one,  but  one  which  the  Scrip- 
ture, rightly  understood,  entitled  every  one  of  his 
hearers  to  make  for  himself. 

And  so  we  find  throughout  that  Jesus  nowhere 
makes  any  claim  for  himself  which  he  does  not  also 
make  for  those  who  accept  his  teaching.  Does  he  say 
to  the  Jews,  "Ye  are  of  this  world;  I  am  not  of  this 
world?"  Equally  he  says  of  his  disciples,  "They  are 
not  of  the  world,  even  as  I  am  not  of  the  world." 
Does  he  say,  "I  am  the  light  of  the  world  ?"  Equally, 
he  says,  "Ye  are  the  light  of  the  world."  Does  he  say, 
"I  and  my  Father  are  one?"  Equally  he  prays  that 
they  all  might  be  one,  even  as  we  are  one.  Is  he  styled 
"the  Son  of  God?"  Then  St.  John  writes,  "To  them 
gave  he  power  to  become  sons  of  God,  even  to  as  many 


138       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

as  believe  on  his  name;"  and  by  belief  on  the  name  we 
may  surely  understand  belief  in  the  principle  of  which 
the  name  is  the  verbal  representation. 

The  essential  unity  of  God  and  man  is  thus  the  one 
fact  which  permeates  the  whole  teaching  of  Jesus. 
He  himself  stood  forth  as  its  living  expression.  He 
appealed  to  his  miracles  as  the  proofs  of  it :  "it  is  the 
Father  that  doeth  the  works."  It  formed  the  substance 
of  his  final  discourse  with  his  disciples  in  the  night  that 
he  was  betrayed.  It  is  the  Truth,  to  bear  witness  to 
which,  he  told  Pilate,  was  the  purpose  of  his  life.  In 
support  of  this  Truth  he  died,  and  by  the  living  power 
of  this  Truth  he  rose  again.  The  whole  object  of  his 
mission  was  to  teach  men  to  realise  their  unity  with 
God  and  the  consequences  that  must  necessarily  follow 
from  it;  to  draw  them  away  from  that  notion  of 
dualism  which  puts  an  impassable  barrier  between  God 
and  man,  and  thus  renders  any  true  conception  of  the 
Principle  of  Life  impossible;  and  to  draw  them  into 
the  clear  perception  of  the  innermost  nature  of  Life, 
as  consisting  in  the  inherent  identity  of  each  individual 
with  that  Infinite  all-pervading  Spirit  of  Life  which  he 
called  "the  Father." 

"The  branch  cannot  bear  fruit  except  it  abide  in  the 
vine ;"  the  power  of  bearing  fruit,  of  producing  and  of 
giving  forth,  depends  entirely  on  the  fact  that  the  indi- 
vidual is,  and  always  continues  to  be,  as  much  an  organ- 
ic part  of  Universal  Spirit  as  the  fruit-bearing  branch 
is  an  organic  part  of  the  parent  stem.  Lose  this  idea, 


Separation  and  Unity  139 

and  regard  God  as  a  merely  external  Creator  who  may 
indeed  command  us,  or  even  sometimes  be  moved  by 
our  cries  and  entreaties,  and  we  have  lost  the  root  of 
Livingness  and  with  it  all  possibility  of  growth  or  of 
liberty.  This  is  dualism,  which  cuts  us  off  from  our 
Source  of  Life ;  and  so  long  as  we  take  this  false  con- 
ception for  the  true  law  of  Being,  we  shall  find  our- 
selves hampered  by  limitations  and  insoluble  problems 
of  every  description :  We  have  lost  the  Key  of  Life 
and  are  consequently  unable  to  open  the  door. 

But  in  proportion  as  we  abide  in  the  vine,  that  is, 
consciously  realise  our  perpetual  unity  with  Originating 
Spirit,  and  impress  upon  ourselves  that  this  unity  is 
neither  bestowed  as  the  reward  of  merit,  nor  as  an  act 
of  favour — which  would  be  to  deny  the  Unity,  for  the 
bestowal  would  at  once  imply  dualism — but  dwell  on 
the  truth  that  it  is  the  innermost  and  supreme  principle 
of  our  own  nature ;  in  proportion  as  we  consciously  rea- 
lise this,  we  shall  rise  to  greater  and  greater  certainty 
of  knowledge,  resulting  in  more  and  more  perfect  ex- 
ternalisation,  whose  increasing  splendour  can  know  no 
limits ;  for  it  is  the  continual  outflowing  of  the  exhaust- 
less  Spirit  of  Life  in  that  manifestation  of  itself  which 
is  our  own  individuality. 

The  notion  of  dualism  is  the  veil  which  prevents  men 
seeing  this,  and  causes  them  to  wander  blindfolded 
among  the  mazes  of  endless  perplexity ;  but,  as  St.  Paul 
truly  says,  when  this  veil  is  taken  away  we  shall  find 
ourselves  changed  from  glory  to  glory  as  by  the  Lord 


140       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

the  Spirit.  "His  name  shall  be  called  Immanuel,"  that 
is  "God  in  us,"  not  a  separate  being  from  ourselves. 
Let  us  remember  that  Jesus  was  condemned  by  the  prin- 
ciple of  separation  because  he  himself  was  the  exter- 
nalisation  of  the  principle  of  Unity,  and  that,  in  adher- 
ing to  the  principle  of  Unity  we  are  adhering  to  the 
only  possible  root  of  Life,  and  are  maintaining  the 
Truth  for  which  Jesus  died. 


XVII 

EXTERNALISATION 

WHO  would  not  be  happy  in  himself  and  his  condi- 
tions? That  is  what  we  all  desire — more  fulness  of 
life,  a  greater  and  brighter  vitality  in  ourselves,  and 
less  restriction  in  our  surroundings.  And  we  are  told 
that  the  talisman  by  which  this  can  be  accomplished  is 
Thought.  We  are  told,  Change  your  modes  of  thought, 
and  the  changed  conditions  will  follow.  But  many 
seekers  feel  that  this  is  very  much  like  telling  us  to 
catch  birds  by  putting  salt  on  their  tails.  If  we  can 
put  the  salt  on  the  bird's  tail,  we  can  also  lay  our  hand 
on  the  bird.  If  we  can  change  our  thinking,  we  can 
thereby  change  our  circumstances. 

But  how  are  we  to  bring  about  this  change  of  cause 
which  will  in  its  turn  produce  this  changed  effect? 
This  is  the  practical  question  that  perplexes  many 
earnest  seekers.  They  can  see  their  way  clearly  enough 
through  the  whole  sequence  of  cause  and  effect  result- 
ing in  the  externalisation  of  the  desired  results,  if 
only  the  one  initial  difficulty  could  be  got  over.  The 
difficulty  is  a  real  one,  and  until  it  is  overcome  it 
vitiates  all  the  teaching  and  reduces  it  to  a  mere  paper 

141 


14-2       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

theory.  Therefore  it  is  to  this  point  that  the  attention 
of  students  should  be  particularly  directed.  They  feel 
the  need  of  some  solid  basis  from  which  the  change 
of  thought  can  be  effected,  and  until  they  find  this 
the  theory  of  Divine  Science,  however  perfect  in  itself, 
will  remain  for  them  nothing  more  than  a  mere  theory, 
producing  no  practical  results. 

The  necessary  scientific  basis  exists,  however,  and  is 
extremely  simple  and  reasonable,  if  we  will  take  the 
pains  to  think  it  out  carefully  for  ourselves.  Unless 
we  are  prepared  to  support  the  thesis  that  the  Power 
which  created  the  universe  is  inherently  evil,  or  that 
the  universe  is  the  work  of  two  opposite  and  equal 
powers,  one  evil  and  the  other  good — both  of  which 
propositions  are  demonstrably  false — we  have  no  al- 
ternative but  to  say  that  the  Originating  Source  of  all 
must  be  inherently  good.  It  cannot  be  partly  good  and 
partly  evil,  for  that  would  be  to  set  it  against  itself 
and  make  it  self-destructive ;  therefore  it  must  be  good 
altogether.  But  once  grant  this  initial  proposition  and 
we  cut  away  the  root  of  all  evil.  For  how  can  evil 
proceed  from  an  All-originating  Source  which  is  good 
altogether,  and  in  which,  therefore,  no  germ  for  the 
development  of  evil  is  to  be  found?  Good  cannot  be 
the  origin  of  evil ;  and  since  nothing  can  proceed  except 
from  the  one  Originating  Mind,  which  is  only  good, 
the  true  nature  of  all  things  must  be  that  which  they 
have  received  from  their  Source — namely,  good. 

Hence  it  follows  that  evil  is  not  the  true  nature  of 


Externalisation  143 

anything,  and  that  evil  must  have  its  rise  in  something 
external  to  the  true  nature  of  things.  And  since  evil 
is  not  in  the  true  nature  of  the  things  themselves,  nor 
yet  in  the  Universal  Mind  which  is  the  Originating 
Principle,  there  remains  only  one  place  for  it  to  spring 
from,  and  that  is  our  own  personal  thought.  First  we 
suppose  evil  to  be  as  inherent  in  the  nature  of  things 
as  good — a  supposition  which  we  could  not  make  if 
we  stopped  to  consideY  the  necessary  nature  of  the 
Originating  Principle.  Then,  on  this  entirely  gratu- 
itous supposition,  we  proceed  to  build  up  a  fabric  of 
fears,  which,  of  course,  folldw  logically  from  it;  and 
so  we  nourish  and  give  substance  to  the  Negative,  or 
that  which  has  no  substantial  existence  except  such  as 
we  attribute  to  it,  until  we  come  to  regard  it  as  having 
Affirmative  power  of  its  own,  and  so  set  up  a  false  idea 
of  Being — the  product  of  our  own  minds — to  dispute 
the  claims  of  true  Being  to  the  sovereignty  of  the 
universe. 

Once  assume  the  existence  of  two  rival  powers — 
one  goxxl  and  the  other  evil — in  the  direction  of  the 
universe,  and  any  sense  of  harmony  becomes  impos- 
sible; the  whole  course  of  Nature  is  thrown  out  of 
geaf,  and,  whether  for  ourselves  or  for  the  world  at 
large,  there  remains  no  ground  of  certainty  anywhere. 
And  this  is  precisely  the  condition  in  which  the  ma- 
jority of  people  live.  They  are  surrounded  by  infinite 
uncertainty  about  everything,  and  are  consequently  a 
pity  td  continual  fears  and  anxieties ;  and  the  only  way 


144       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

of  escape  from  this  state  of  things  is  to  go  to  the  root 
of  the  matter,  and  realise  that  the  whole  fabric  of  evil 
originates  in  our  own  inverted  conception  of  the 
nature  of  Being. 

But  if  we  once1  realise  that  the  true  conception  of 
Being  necessarily  excludes"  the  very  idea  of  evil,  we 
shall  see  that,  in  giving  way  to  thoughts  and  fears  of 
evil,  we  are  giving  substance  to  that  which  has  no  real 
substance  in  itself,  and  are  attributing  to  the  Negative 
an  Affirmative  force  which  it  does  not  possess — in  fact, 
we  are  creating  the  very  thing  we  fear.  And  the  rem- 
edy for  this  is  always  to  recur  to  the  original  nature 
of  Being  as  altogether  Good,  and  then  to  speak  to 
ourselves  thus :  "My  thought  must  continually  ex- 
ternalise something,  for  that  is  its  inherent  quality, 
which  nothing  can  ever  alter.  Shall  I,  then,  ex- 
ternalise God  or  the  opposite  of  God?  Which  do 
I  wish  to  see  manifested  in  my  life — Good  or  its  oppo- 
site? Shall  I  manifest  what  I  know  to  be  the  reality 
or  the  reverse?"  Then  conies  the  steady  resolve  al- 
ways to  manifest  God,  or  Good,  because  that  is  the 
only  true  reality  in  all  things;  and  this  resolve  is  with 
power  because  it  is  founded  upon  the  solid  rock  of 
Truth. 

We  must  refuse  to  know  evil;  we  must  refuse  to 
admit  that  there  is  any  such  thing  to  be  known.  It 
is  the  converse  of  this  which  is  symbolised  in  the  story 
of  the  Fall.  "In  the  day  that  thou  eatest  thereof  thou 
shalt  surely  die"  was  never  spoken  of  the  knowledge 


Externalisation  145 

of  Good,  for  Good  never  brought  death  into  the  world. 
It  is  eating  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  a  so-called  knowledge 
which  admits  a  second  branch,  the  knowledge  of  evil, 
that  is  the  source  of  death.  Admit  that  evil  has  a  sub- 
stantive entity,  which  renders  it  a  subject  of  knowledge, 
and  you  thereby  create  it,  with  all  its  consequences  of 
sorrow,  sickness  and  death.  But  "be  sure  that  the 
Lord  He  is  God" — that  is,  that  the  one  and  Only 
Ruling  Principle  of  the  universe,  whether  within  us  or 
around  us,  is  Good  and  Good  only — and  evil  with  all 
its  train  sinks  back  into  its  original  nothingness,  and 
we  find  that  the  Truth  has  made  us  free.  We  are 
free  to  externalise  what  we  will,  whether  in  ourselves 
or  our  surroundings,  for  we  have  found  the  solid  basis 
on  which  to  make  the  needed  change  of  mental  atti- 
tude in  the  fact  that  the  Good  is  the  only  reality  of 
Being. 
1902. 


XVIII 
ENTERING  INTO  THE  SPIRIT  OF  IT 

"ENTERING  into  the  spirit  of  it."  What  a  common  ex- 
pression! And  yet  how  much  it  really  means,  how 
absolutely  everything!  We  enter  into  the  spirit  of  an 
undertaking,  into  the  spirit  of  a  movement,  into  the 
spirit  of  an  author,  even  into  the  spirit  of  a  game;* 
and  it  makes  all  the  difference  both  to  us  and  to  that 
into  which  we  enter.  A  game  without  any  spirit  is  a 
poor  affair;  and  association  in  which  there  is  no  spirit 
falls  to  pieces;  and  a  spiritless  undertaking  is  sure  to 
be  a  failure.  On  the  other  hand,  the  book  which  is 
meaningless  to  the  unsympathising  reader  is  full  of 
life  and  suggestion  to  the  one  who  enters  into*  the 
spirit  of  the  writer ;  the  man  who  enters  into  the  spirit 
of  the  music  finds  a  spring  of  refreshment  in  some  fine 
recital  which  is  entirely  missed  by  the  cold  critic  who 
comes  only  to  judge  according  to  the  standard  of  a 
rigid  rule;  and  so  on  in  every  case  that  we  can  think 
of.  If  we  do  not  enter  the  spirit  of  a  thing,  it  has  no 
invigorating  effect  upon  us,  and  we  regard  it  as  dull, 
insipid  and  worthless.  This  is  our  everyday  experi- 
ence, and  these  are  the  words  in  which  we  express  it. 

146 


Entering  into  the  Spirit  of  It  147 

And  the  words  are  well  chosen.  They  show  our 
intuitive  recognition  of  the  spirit  as  the  fundamental 
reality  in  everything,  however  small  or  however  great. 
Let  us  be  right  as  to  the  spirit  of  a  thing,  and  every- 
thing else  will  successfully  follow. 

By  entering  into  the  spirit  of  anything  we  establish 
a  mutual  vivifying  action  and  reaction  between  it  and 
ourselves;  we  vivify  it  with  our  own  vitality,  and  it 
vivifies  us  with  a  living  interest  which  we  call  its 
spirit;  and  therefore  the  more  fully  we  enter  into  the 
spirit  of  all  with  which  we  are  concerned,  the  more 
thoroughly  do  we  become  alive.  The  more  completely 
we  do  this  the  more  we  shall  find  that  we  are  pene- 
trating into  the  great  secret  of  Life.  It  may  seem  a 
truism,  but  the  great  secret  of  Life  is  its  Livingness, 
and  it  is  just  more  of  this  quality  of  Livingness  that 
we  want  to  get  hold  of ;  it  is  that  good  thing  of  which 
we  can  never  have  too  much. 

But  every  fact  implies  also  its  negative,  and  we  never 
properly  understand  a  thing  until  we  not  only  know 
what  it  is,  but  also  clearly  understand  what  it  is  not. 
To  a  complete  understanding  the  knowledge  of  the 
negative  is  as  necessary  as  the  knowledge  of  the  affirm- 
ative; for  the  perfect  knowledge  consists  in  realising 
the  relation  between  the  two,  and  the  perfect  power 
grows  out  of  this  knowledge  by  enabling  us  to  balance 
the  affirmative  and  negative  against  each  other  in  any 
proportion  that  we  will,  thus  giving  flexibility  to  what 
would  otherwise  be  too  rigid,  and  form  to  what  would 


148       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

otherwise  be  too  fluid;  and  so,  by  uniting  these  two 
extremes,  to  produce  any  result  we  may  desire.  It  is 
the  old  Hermetic  saying,  "Coagula  et  solve" — "Solid- 
ify the  fluid  and  dissolve  the  solid" ;  and  therefore,  if 
we  would  discover  the  secret  of  "entering  into  the 
spirit  of  it,"  we  must  get  some  idea  of  the  negative, 
which  is  the  "not-spirit." 

In  various  ages  this  negative  phase  has  been  ex- 
pressed in  different  forms  of  words  suitable  to  the 
spirit  of  the  time;  and  so,  clothing  this  idea  in  the 
attire  of  the  present  day,  I  will  sum  up  the  opposite 
of  Spirit  in  the  word  "Mechanism."  Before  all  things 
this  is  a  mechanical  age,  and  it  is  astonishing  how 
great  a  part  of  what  we  call  our  social  advance  has  its 
root  in  the  mechanical  arts.  Reduce  the  mechanical 
arts  to  what  they  were  in  the  days  of  the  Plantagenets 
and  the  greater  part  oi  our  boasted  civilisation  would 
recede  through  the  centuries  along  with  them.  We 
may  not  be  conscious  of  all  this,  but  the  mechanical 
tendency  of  the  age  has  a  firm  grip  upon  society  at 
large.  We  habitually  look  at  the  mechanical  side  of 
things  by  preference  to  any  other.  Everything  is  done 
mechanically,  from  the  carving  on  a  piece  of  furniture 
to  the  arrangement  oi  the  social  system.  It  is  the 
mechanism  that  must  be  considered  first,  and  the  spirit 
has  to  be  fitted  to  the  mechanical  exigencies.  We  enter 
into  the  mechanism  of  it  instead  of  into  the  Spirit  of 
it,  and  so  limit  the  Spirit  and  refuse  to  let  it  have  its 
own  way;  and  then,  as  a  consequence,  we  get  entirely 


Entering  into  the  Spirit  of  It  149 

mechanical  action,  and  complete  our  circle  of  igno- 
rance by  supposing  that  this  is  the  only  sort  of  action 
there  is. 

Yet  this  is  not  a  necessary  state  of  things  even  in 
regard  to  "physical  science,"  for  the  men  who  have 
made  the  greatest  advances  in  that  direction  are  those 
who  have  most  clearly  seen  the  subordination  of  the 
mechanical  to  the  spiritual.  The  man  who  can  recog- 
nise a  natural  law  only  as  it  operates  through  certain 
forms  of  mechanism  with  which  he  is  familiar  will 
never  rise  to  the  construction  of  the  higher  forms  of 
mechanism  which  might  be  built  up  upon  that  law, 
for  he  fails  to  see  that  it  is  the  law  which  determines 
the  mechanism  and  not  vice  versa.  This  man  will 
make  no  advance  in  science,  either  theoretical  or  ap- 
plied, and  the  world  will  never  owe  any  debt  of  grati- 
tude to  him.  But  the  man  who  recognises  that  the 
mechanism  for  the  application  of  any  principle  grows 
out  of  the  true  apprehension  of  the  principle  studies 
the  principle  first,  knowing  that  when  that  is  properly 
grasped  it  will  necessarily  suggest  all  that  is  wanted 
for  bringing  it  into  practical  use. 

And  if  this  is  true  in  regard  to  so-called  physical 
science,  it  is  a  fortiori  true  as  regards  the  Science  of 
Spirit.  There  is  a  mechanical  attitude  of  mind  which 
judges  everything  by  the  limitations  of  past  experi- 
ences, allowing  nothing  for  the  fact  that  those  experi- 
ences were  for  the  most  part  the  results  of  our  igno- 
rance of  spiritual  law.  But  if  we  realise  the  true*  law 


150       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

of  Being  we  shall  rise  above  these  mechanical  concep- 
tions. We  shall  not  deny  the  reality  of  the  body  or  of 
the  physical  world  as  facts,  knowing  that  they  also  are 
Spirit,  but  we  shall  learn  to  deny  their  power  as  causes. 
We  shall  learn  to  distinguish  between  the  causa  causta 
and  the  causa  causans,  the  secondary  or  apparent  phys- 
ical cause  and  the  primary  or  spiritual  cause,  without 
which  the  secondary  cause  could  not  exist;  and  so  we 
shall  get  a  new  standpoint  of  clear  knowledge  and  cer- 
tain power  by  stepping  over  the  threshold  of  the  me- 
chanical and  entering  into  the  spirit  of  it. 

What  we  have  to  do  is  to  maintain  our  even  balance 
between  the  two  extremes,  denying  neither  Spirit  nor 
the  mechanism  which  is  its  form  and  through  which 
it  works.  The  one  is  as  necessary  to  a  perfect  whole 
as  the  other,  for  there  must  be  an  outside  as  well  as 
an  inside;  only  we  must  remember  that  the  creative 
principle  is  always  inside,  .and  that  the  outside  only  ex- 
hibits what  the  inside  creates.  Hence,  whatever  ex- 
ternal effect  we  would  produce,  we  must  first  enter 
into  the  spirit  of  it  and  work  upon  the  spiritual  prin- 
ciple, whether  in  ourselves  or  others;  and  by  so  doing 
our  insight  will  become  greatly  enlarged,  for  from 
without  we  can  see  only  one  small  portion  of  the  cir- 
cumference, while  from  the  centre  we  can  see  the 
whole  of  it.  If  we  fully  grasp  the  truth  that  Spirit 
is  Creator,  we  can  dispense  with  painful  investiga- 
tions into  the  mechanical  side  of  all  our  problems. 
If  we  are  constructing  from  without,  then  we  have  to 


Entering  into  the  Spirit  of  It  151 

ralculate  anxiously  the  strength  of  our  materials  and 
the  force  of  every  thrust  and  strain  to  which  they  may 
be  subjected,  and  very  possibly  after  all  we  may  find 
that  we  have  made  a  mistake  somewhere  in  our  elab- 
orate calculations.  But  if  we  realise  the  power  of 
creating  from  within,  we  shall  find  all  these  calcula- 
tions correctly  made  for  us ;  for  the  same  Spirit  which 
is  Creator  is  also  that  which  the  Bible  calls  "the  Won- 
derful Numberer."  Construction  from  without  is 
based  upon  analysis,  and  no  analysis  is  complete  with- 
out accurate  quantitative  knowledge;  but  creation  is 
the  very  opposite  of  analysis,  and  carries  its  own  math- 
ematics with  it. 

To  enter  into  the  spirit  of  anything,  then,  is  to  make 
yourself  one  in  thought  with  the  creative  principle 
that  is  at  the  centre  of  it;  and  therefore  why  not  go 
to  the  centre  of  all  things  at  once,  and  enter  into  the 
Spirit  of  Life?  Do  you  ask  where  to  find  it?  In  your- 
self; and  in  proportion  as  you  find  it  there,  you  will 
will  find  it  everywhere  else.  Look  at  Life  as  the  one 
thing  that  is,  whether  in  you  or  around  you;  try  to 
realise  the  livingness  of  it,  and  then  seek  to  enter  into 
the  Spirit  of  it  by  affirming  it  to  be  the  whole  of  what 
you  are.  Affirm  this  continually  in  your  thoughts,  and 
by  degrees  the  affirmation  will  grow  into  a  real  living 
force  within  you,  so  that  it  will  become  a  second  nature 
to  you,  and  you  will  find  it  impossible  and  unnatural  to 
think  in  any  other  way;  and  the  nearer  you  approach 
this  point  the  greater  you  will  find  your  control  over 


152       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

both  body  and  circumstances,  until  at  last  you  shall  so 
enter  into  the  Spirit  of  it — into  the  Spirit  of  the  Divine 
creative  power  which  is  the  root  of  all  things — that,  in 
the  words  of  Jesus,  "nothing  shall  be  impossible  to 
you,"  because  you  have  so  entered  into  the  Spirit  of 
it  that  you  discover  yourself  to  be  one  with  it.  Then 
all  the  old  limitations  will  have  passed  away,  and  you 
will  be  living  in  an  entirely  new  world  of  Life,  Liberty 
and  Love,  of  which  you  yourself  are  the  radiating 
centre.  You  will  realise  the  truth  that  your  Thought 
is  a  limitless  creative  power,  and  that  you  yourself  are 
behind  your  Thought,  controlling  and  directing  it  with 
Knowledge  for  any  purpose  which  Love  motives  and 
Wisdom  plans.  Thus  you  will  cease  from  your  labours, 
your  struggles  and  anxieties,  and  enter  into  that  new 
order  where  perfect  rest  is  one  with  ceaseless  activity. 
1902. 


XIX 

THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  NEW  THOUGHT 

i 
The  Son 

A  DEEPLY  interesting  subject  to  the  student  of  the  New 
Thought  movement  is  to  trace  how  exactly 'its  teach- 
ing is  endorsed  by  the  teaching  of  the  Bible.  There  is 
no  such  thing  as  new  thought  in  the  sense  of  new 
Truth,  for  what  is  truth  now  must  have  been  truth 
always;  but  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  new  present- 
ment of  the  old  Truth,  and  it  is  in  this  that  the  new- 
ness of  the  present  movement  consists.  But  the  same 
Truth  has  been  repeatedly  stated  in  earlier  ages  under 
various  forms  and  in  various  measures  of  complete- 
ness, and  nowhere  more  completely  than  in  the  Scrip- 
tures of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments.  None  of  the 
older  forms  of  statement  is  more  familiarly  known  to 
our  readers  than  that  contained  in  the  Bible,  and  no 
other  is  entwined  around  our  hearts  with  the  same 
sacred  and  tender  associations:  therefore,  I  have  no 
hesitation  in  saying  that  the  existence  of  a  marked 

153 


154       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

correspondence  between  its  teaching  and  that  of  the 
New  Thought  cannot  but  be  a  source  of  strength  and 
encouragement  to  any  of  us  who  have  been  accustomed 
in  the  past  to  look  to  the  old  and  hallowed  Book  as 
a  storehouse  of  Divine  wisdom.  We  shall  find  that 
the  clearer  light  will  make  the  rough  places  smooth 
and  the  dim  places  luminous,  and  that  of  the  treasures 
of  knowledge  hidden  in  the  ancient  volume  the  half  has 
not  been  told  us. 

The  Bible  lays  emphatic  stress  upon  "the  glorious 
liberty  of  the  sons  of  God,"  thus  uniting  in  a  single 
phrase  the  twofold  idea  of  filial  dependence  and  per- 
sonal liberty.  A  careful  study  of  the  subject  will  show 
us  that  there  is  no  opposition  between  these  two  ideas, 
but  that  they  are  necessary  correlatives  to  each  other, 
and  that  whether  stated  after  the  more  concentrated 
method  of  the  Bible,  or  after  the  more  detailed  method 
of  the  New  Thought,  the  true  teaching  proclaims,  not 
our  independence  of  God,  but  our  independence  in  God. 

Such  an  enquiry  naturally  centres  in  an  especial 
manner  around  the  sayings  of  Jesus;  for  whatever 
may  be  our  opinions  as  to  the  nature  of  the  authority 
with  which  he  spoke,  we  must  all  agree  that  a  peculiar 
weight  attaches  to  those  utterances  which  have  come 
down  to  us  as  the  ipsissima  verba  from  which  the  entire 
New  Testament  has  been  developed;  and  if  an  identity 
of  conception  in  the  New  Thought  movement  can  be 
traced  here  at  the  fountain-head,  we  may  expect  to  find 
it  in  the  lower  streams  also. 


The  Bible  and  the  New  Thought          155 

The  Key  to  the  Master's  teaching  is  to  be  found  in 
his  discourse  with  the  Woman  of  Samaria,  and  it  is 
contained  in  the  statement  that  "the  Father"  is  Spirit, 
that  is,  Spirit  in  the  absolute  and  unqualified  sense  of 
the  word,  as  appears  from  the  original  Greek,  and  not 
"A  Spirit"  as  it  is  rendered  in  the  Authorised  Version : 
and  then  as  the  natural  correlative  to  "the  Father"  we 
find  another  term  employed,  "the  Son."  The  relation 
between  these  two  forms  the  great  subject  of  Jesus' 
teaching,  and,  therefore,  it  is  most  important  to  have 
some  definite  idea  of  what  he  meant  by  these  terms 
if  we  would  understand  what  it  was  that  he  really 
taught. 

Now  if  "the  Father"  be  Spirit,  "the  Son"  must  be 
Spirit  also;  for  a  son  must  necessarily  be  of  the  same 
nature  as  his  father.  But  since  "the  Father"  is  Spirit, 
Absolute  and  Universal,  it  is  evident  that  "the  Son" 
cannot  be  Spirit,  Absolute  and  Universal,  because  there 
cannot  be  two  Universal  Spirits,  for  then  neither  would 
be  universal.  We  may,  therefore,  logically  infer  that 
because  "the  Father"  is  Universal  Spirit,  "the  Son"  is 
Spirit  not  universal;  and  the  only  definition  of  Spirit 
not-universal  is  Spirit  individualised  and  particular. 
The  Scripture  tells  us  that  "the  Spirit  is  Life,"  and 
taking  this  as  the  definition  of  "Spirit,"  we  find  that 
"the  Father"  is  Absolute,  Originating,  Undifferen- 
tiated  Life,  and  "the  Son"  is  the  same  Life  differen- 
tiated into  particular  forms.  Hence,  in  the  widest 
sense  of  the  expression,  "the  Son"  stands  for  the  whole 


156       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

creation,  visible  or  invisible,  and  in  this  sense  it  is  the 
mere  differentiation  of  the  universal  Life  into  a  mul- 
tiplicity of  particular  modes.  But  if  we  have  any 
adequate  idea  of  the  intelligent  and  responsive  nature 
of  Spirit * — if  we  realise  that  because  it  is  Pure  Being 
it  must  be  Infinite  Intelligence  and  Infinite  Responsive- 
ness— then  we  shall  see  tjiat  its  reproduction  in  the 
particular  admits  of  innumerable  degrees,  from  mere 
expression  as  outward  form  up  to  the  very  fullest  ex- 
pression of  the  infinite  intelligence  and  responsiveness 
that  Spirit  is. 

The  teachings  of  Jesus  were  addressed  to  the  hearts 
and  intelligences  of  men,  and  therefore  the  grade  of 
sonship  of  which  he  spoke  has  reference  to  the  ex- 
pression of  Infinite  Being  in  the  human  heart  and 
intellect.  But  this,  again,  may  be  conceived  of  in 
infinite  degrees;  in  some  men  there  is  the  bare  poten- 
tiality of  sonship  entirely  undeveloped  as  yet,  in  others 
the  beginnings  of  its  development,  in  others  a  fuller 
development,  and  so  on,  until  we  can  suppose  .some 

1  Intelligence  and  Responsiveness  is  the  Generic  Nature  of 
Spirit  in  every  Mode,  and  it  is  the  concentration  of  this  into 
centres  of  consciousness  that  makes  personality,  i.  e.,  self-con- 
scious individuality.  This  varies  immensely  in  degree,  from  its 
first  adumbration  in  the  animal  to  its  intense  development  in  the 
Great  Masters  of  Spiritual  Science.  Therefore  it  is  called  "The 
Power  that  Knows  Itself" — It  is  the  power  of  5W/- recognition 
that  makes  personality,  and  as  we  grow  to  see  that  our  person- 
ality is  not  all  contained  between  our  hat  and  our  boots,  as  Walt 
Whitman  says,  but  expands  away  into  the  Infinite,  which  we  then 
find  to  be  the  Infinite  of  ourselves,  the  same  I  AM  that  I  am,  so 
our  personality  expands  and  we  become  conscious  of  ever-in- 
creasing degrees  of  Life-in-ourselves. 


The  Bible  and  the  New  Thought  157 

supreme  instance  in  which  the  absolutely  perfect  re- 
production of  the  universal  has  been  attained.  Each 
of  these  stages  constitutes  a  fuller  and  fuller  expres- 
sion of  sonship,  until  the  supreme  development  reaches 
a  point  at  which  it  can  be  described  only  as  the  perfect 
image  of  "the  Father";  and  this  is  the  logical  result 
of  a  process  of  steady  growth  from  an  inward  principle 
of  Life  which  constitutes  the  identity  of  each  indi- 
vidual. 

It  is  thus  a  necessary  inference  from  Jesus'  own 
explanation  of  "the  Father"  as  Spirit  or  Infinite  Being 
that  "the  Son"  is  the  Scriptural  phrase  for  the  repro- 
duction of  Infinite  Being  in  the  individual,  contem- 
plated in  that  stage  at  which  the  individual  does  in 
some  measure  begin  to  recognise  his  identity  with  his 
originating  source,  or,  at  any  rate,  where  he  has 
capacity  for  such  a  recognition,  even  though  the  actual 
recognition  may  not  yet  have  taken  place.  It  is  very 
remarkable  that,  thus  defining  "the  Son"  on  the  direct 
statement  of  Jesus  himself,  we  arrive  exactly  at  the 
definition  of  Spirit  as  "that  power  which  knows  itself." 
In  the  capacity  for  thus  recognising  its  identity  of 
nature  with  "the  Father"  is  it  that  the  potential  fact 
of  sonship  consists,  for  the  prodigal  son  was  still  a 
son  even  before  he  began  to  realise  his  relation  to  his 
"Father"  in  actual  fact.  It  is  the  dawning  of  this 
recognition  that  constitutes  the  spiritual  "babe,"  or 
infant  son ;  and  by  degrees  this  consciousness  grows  till 
he  attains  the  full  estate  of  spiritual  manhood.  This 


158       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

recognition  by  the  individual  of  his  own  identity  with 
Universal  Spirit  is  precisely  what  forms  the  basis  of 
the  New  ThougKt ;  and  thus  at  the  outset  the  two  sys- 
tems radiate  from  a  common  centre. 

But  I  suppose  the  feature  of  the  New  Thought 
which  is  the  greatest  stumbling-block  to  those  who 
view  the  movement  from  the  outside  is  the  claim  it 
makes  for  Thought-power  as  an  active  factor  in  the 
affairs  of  daily  life.  As  a  mere  set  of  speculative 
opinions  people  might  be  willing  to  pigeon-hole  it  along 
with  the  philosophic  systems  of  Kant  or  Hegel;  but 
it  is  the  practical  element  in  it  which  causes  the  diffi- 
culty. It  is  not  only  a  system  of  Thought  based  upon 
a  conception  of  the  Unity  of  Being,  but  it  claims  to 
follow  out  this  conception  to  its  legitimate  conse- 
quences in  the  production  of  visible  and  tangible  exter- 
nal results  by  the  mere  exercise  of  Thought-power.  A 
ridiculous  claim,  a  claim  not  to  be  tolerated  by  com- 
mon sense,  a  trespassing  upon  the  Divine  prerogative, 
a  claim  of  unparalleled  audacity:  thus  the  casual  ob- 
jector. But  this  claim  is  not  without  its  parallel,  for 
the  same  claim  was  put  forward  on  the  same  ground 
by  the  Great  Teacher  Himself  as  the  proper  result  of 
"the  Son's"  recognition  of  his  relation  to  "the  Father." 
"Ask  what  ye  will,  and  it  shall  be  done  unto  you" ; 
"Whatsoever  you  shall  ask  in  prayer,  believing,  you 
shall  receive,  and  nothing  shall  be  impossible  unto 
you";  "All  things  are  possible  to  him  that  believeth." 
These  statements  are  absolutely  without  any  note  of 


The  Bible  and  the  New  Thought  159 

limitation  save  that  imposed  by  the  seeker's  want  of 
faith  in  his  own  power  to  move  the  Infinite.  This  is 
as  clear  a  declaration  of  the  efficacy  of  mental  power 
to  produce  outward  and  tangible  results  as  any  now 
made  by  the  New  Thought,  and  it  is  made  on  pre- 
cisely the  same  ground,  namely,  the  readiness  of  "the 
Father"  or  Spirit  in  the  Universal  to  respond  to  the 
movement  of  Spirit  in  the  individual. 

In  the  Bible  this  movement  of  individualised  Spirit 
is  called  "prayer,"  and  it  is  synonymous  with  Thought, 
formulated  with  the  intention  of  producing  this  re- 
sponse. 

"Prayer  is  the  heart's  sincere  desire, 
Uttered  or  unexpressed," 

and  we  must  not  let  ourselves  be  misled  by  the  asso- 
ciation of  particular  forms  with  particular  words,  but 
should  follow  the  sound  advice  of  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes,  and  submit  such  words  to  a  process  of  de- 
polarisation,  which  brings  out  their  real  meaning. 
Whether  we  call  our  act  "prayer"  or  "thought-con- 
centration," we  mean  the  same  thing;  it  is  the  claim 
of  the  man  to  move  the  Infinite  by  the  action  of  his 
own  mind. 

It  may  be  objected,  however,  that  this  definition 
omits  an  important  element  of  prayer,  the  question, 
namely,  whether  God  will  hear  it.  But  this  is  the  very 
element  that  Jesus  most  rigorously  excludes  from  his 
description  of  the  mental  act.  Prayer,  according  to 


160       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

the  popular  notion,  is  a  most  uncertain  matter. 
Whether  we  shall  be  heard  or  not  depends  entirely  upon 
another  will,  regarding  whose  action  we  are  completely 
ignorant,  and  therefore,  according  to  this  notion,  the 
very  essence  of  prayer  consists  of  utter  uncertainty. 
Jesus'  conception  of  prayer  was  the  very  opposite.  He 
bids  us  believe  that  we  have  already  in  fact  received 
what  we  ask  for,  and  makes  this  the  condition  of 
receiving;  in  other  words,  he  makes  the  essential  factor 
in  the  mental  action  to  consist  in  Absolute  Certainty 
as  to  the  corresponding  response  in  the  Infinite,  which 
is  exactly  the  condition  that  the  New  Thought  lays 
down  for  the  successful  operation  of  Thought-power. 
It  may,  however,  be  objected  that  if  men  have  thus 
an  indiscriminate  power  of  projecting  their  thought 
to  the  accomplishment  of  anything  they  desire,  they 
can  do  so  for  evil  as  easily  as  for  good.  But  Jesus 
fully  recognised  this  possibility,  and  worked  the  only 
destructive  miracle  recorded  of  him  for  the  express 
purpose  of  emphasising  the  danger.  The  reason  given 
by  the  compilers  of  the  Gospel  for  the  destruction  of 
the  fig-tree  is  clearly  inadequate,  for  we  certainly  can- 
not suppose  Jesus  so  unreasonable  as  to  curse  a  tree 
for  not  bearing  fruit  out  of  season.  But  the  record 
itself  shows  a  very  different  purpose.  Jesus  answered 
the  disciples'  astonished  questioning  by  telling  them 
that  it  was  in  their  own  power,  not  only  to  do  what  was 
done  to  the  fig-tree,  but  to  produce  effects  upon  a  far 
grander  scale;  and  he  concludes  the  conversation  by 


The  Bible  and  the  New  Thought  161 

laying  down  the  duty  of  a  heart-searching  forgiveness 
as  a  necessary  preliminary  to  prayer.  Why  was  this 
precept  so  particularly  impressed  in  this  particular 
connection?  Obviously  because  the  demonstration  he 
had  just  given  of  the  valency  of  thought-power  in  the 
hands  of  instructed  persons  laid  bare  the  fact  that  this 
power  can  be  used  destructively  as  well  as  beneficially, 
and  that,  therefore,  a  thorough  heart-searching  for  the 
eradication  of  any  lurking  ill-feeling  became  an  impera- 
tive preliminary  to  its  safe  use;  otherwise  there  was 
danger  of  noxious  thought-currents  being  set  in  motion 
to  the  injury  of  others.  The  miracle  of  the  fig-tree 
was  an  object-lesson  to  exhibit  the  need  for  the  care- 
ful handling  of  that  limitless  power  which  Jesus  as- 
sured his  disciples  existed  as  fully  in  them  as  in  him- 
self. I  do  not  here  attempt  to  go  into  this  subject  in 
detail,  but  enough  has,  I  think,  been  shown  to  convince 
us  that  Jesus  made  exactly  the  same  claim  for  the 
power  of  Thought  as  that  made  by  the  New  Thought 
movement  at  the  present  day.  It  is  a  great  claim,  and 
it  is,  therefore,  encouraging  to  find  such  an  authority 
committed  to  the  same  assertion. 

The  general  principle  on  which  this  claim  is  based 
by  the  exponents  of  the  New  Thought  is  the  identity 
of  Spirit  in  the  individual  with  spirit  in  the  -universal, 
and  we  shall  find  that  this,  also,  is  the  basis  of  Jesus' 
teaching  on  the  subject.  He  says  that  "the  Son  can 
do  nothing  of  himself,  but  what  he  seeth  the  Father  do 
these  things  doeth  the  Son  in  like  manner."  It  must 


1 62       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

now  be  sufficiently  clear  that  "the  Son"  is  a  generic 
appellation,  not  restricted  to  a  particular  individual, 
but  applicable  to  all;  and  this  statement  explains  the 
manner  of  "the  Son's"  working  in  relation  to  "the 
Father."  The  point  this  sentence  particularly  empha- 
sises is  that  it  is  what  he  sees  the  Father  doing  that 
the  Son  does  also.  His  doing  corresponds  to  his  see- 
ing. If  the  seeing  expands,  the  doing  expands  along 
with  it.  But  we  are  all  sufficiently  familiar  with  this 
principle  in  other  matters.  What  differentiates  an 
Edison  or  a  Marconi  from  the  apprentice  who  knows 
only  how  to  fit  up  an  electric  bell  by  rule  of  thumb? 
It  is  their  capacity  for  seeing  the  universal  principles 
of  electricity  and  bringing  them  into  particular  appli- 
cation. The  great  painter  is  the  one  who  sees  the  uni- 
versal principles  of  form  and  colour  where  the  smaller 
man  sees  only  a  particular  combination;  and  so  with 
the  great  surgeon,  the  great  chemist,  the  great  lawyer 
— in  every  line  it  is  the  power  of  insight  that  distin- 
guishes the  great  man  from  the  little  one;  it  is  the 
capacity  for  making  wide  generalisations  and  perceiv- 
ing far-reaching  laws  that  raises  the  exceptional  mind 
above  the  ordinary  level.  The  greater  working  always 
results  from  the  greater  seeing  into  the  abstract  prin- 
ciples from  which  any  art  or  science  is  generated ;  and 
this  same  law  carried  up  to  the  universal  principles  of 
Life  is  the  law  by  which  "the  Son's"  working  is  pro- 
portioned to  his  seeing  the  method  of  "the  Father's" 
work.  Thus  the  source  of  "the  Son's"  power  lies  in 


The  Bible  and  the  New  Thought  163 

the  contemplation  of  "the  Father,"  the  endeavour,  that 
is,  to  realise  the  true  nature  of  Being,  whether  in  the 
abstract  or  in  its  generic  forms  of  manifestation.2 
This  is  Bacon's  maxim,  "Work  as  God  works" ;  and 
similarly  the  New  Thought  consists  before  all  things 
in  the  realisation  of  the  laws  of  Being. 

And  the  result  of  the  seeing  is  that  "the  Son"  does 
the  same  things  as  "the  Father"  "in  like  manner." 
The  Son's  action  is  the  reproduction  of  the  universal 
principles  in  application  to  specific  instances.  The 
principles  remain  unaltered  and  work  always  in  the 
same  manner,  and  the  office  of  "the  Son"  is  to  deter- 
mine the  particular  field  of  their  operation  with  regard 

2  Everything  depends  on  this  principle  of  Reciprocity.  By 
contemplation  we  come  to  realize  the  true  nature  of  "Spirit" 
or  "the  father."  We  learn  to  disengage  the  variable  factors  of 
particular  Modes  from  the  invariable  factors  which  are  the  es- 
sential qualities  of  Spirit  underlying  all  Modes.  Then  when  we 
realize  these  essential  qualities  we  s'ee  that  we  can  apply  them 
under  any  mode  that  we  will :  in  other  words  we  supply  the 
variable  factor  of  the  combination  by  the  action  of  our  Thought, 
as  Desire  or  Will,  and  thus  combine  it  with  the  invariable  factor 
or  "constant"  of  the  essential  law  of  spirit,  thus  producing  what 
result  we  will.  This  is  just  what  we  do  in  respect  to  physical 
nature — e.  g.,  the  electrician  supplies  the  variable  factor  of  the 
particular  Mode  of  application,  and  the  constant  laws  of  Elec- 
tricity respond  to  the  nature  of  the  invitation  given  to  them. 
This  Responsiveness  is  inherent  in  Spirit;  otherwise  Spirit 
would  have  no  means  of  expansion  into  manifestation.  Re- 
sponsiveness is  the  principle  of  Spirit's  Self-expression.  We 
do  not  have  to  create  responsive  action  on  the  part  of  electricity. 
We  can  safely  take  this  Responsiveness  for  granted  as  pure 
natural  law.  Our  desire  first  works  on  the  Arupa  level  and 
thence  concentrates  itself  through  the  various  Rupa  levels  till 
it  reaches  complete  external  manifestation. 


164       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

to  the  specific  object  which  he  has  in  view;  and  there- 
fore, so  far  as  that  object  is  concerned,  the  action  of 
"the  Son"  becomes  the  action  of  "the  Father"  also. 

Again,  there  is  no  concealment  on  the  part  of  "the 
Father."  He  has  no  secrets,  for  "the  Father  loveth 
the  Son,  and  showeth  him  all  things  that  himself 
doeth."  There  is  perfect  reciprocity  between  Spirit 
in  the  Universal  and  in  Individualisation,  resulting 
from  the  identity  of  Being;  and  "the  Son's"  recogni- 
tion of  Love  as  the  active  principle  of  this  Unity  gives 
him  an  intuitive  insight  into  all  those  inner  workings 
of  the  Universal  Life  which  we  call  the  arcana  of 
Nature.  Love  has  a  divine  gift  of  insight  which  can- 
not be  attained  by  intellect  alone,  and  the  old  saying, 
"Love  will  find  out  the  way,"  has  greater  depths  of 
meaning  than  appear  on  the  surface.  Thus  there  is  not 
only  a  seeing,  but  also  a  showing ;  and  the  three  terms 
— "looking,  seeing,  showing" — combine  to  form  a 
power  of  "working"  to  which  it  is  impossible  to  assign 
any  limit. 

Here,  again,  the  teaching  of  Jesus  is  in  exact  cor- 
respondence with  that  of  the  New  Thought,  which  tells 
us  that  limitations  exist  only  where  we  ourselves  put 
them,  and  that  to  view  ourselves  as  beings  of  limitless 
knowledge,  power,  and  love  is  to  become  such  in  out- 
ward manifestation  of  visible  fact.  Any  objection, 
therefore,  to  the  New  Thought  teaching  regarding  the 
possibilities  latent  in  Man  apply  with  equal  force  to 
the  teachings  of  Jesus.  His  teaching  clearly  was  that 


The  Bible  and  the  New  Thought  165 

the  perfect  individuality  of  Man  is  a  Dual-Unity,  the 
polarisation  of  the  Infinite  in  the  Manifest;  and  it 
requires  only  the  recognition  of  this  truth  for  the 
manifested  element  in  this  binary  system  to  demon- 
strate its  identity  with  the  corresponding  element  which 
is  not  externally  visible.  He  said  that  He  and  his 
Father  were  One,  that  those  who  had  seen  him  had 
seen  the  Father,  that  the  words  which  he  spoke  were 
the  Father's,  and  that  it  was  the  Father  who  did  the 
works.  Nothing  could  be  more  explicit.  Absolute 
unity  of  the  manifested  individuality  with  the  Orig- 
inating Infinite  Spirit  is  asserted  or  implied  in  every 
utterance  attributed  to  Jesus,  whether  spoken  of  him- 
self or  of  others.  He  recognises  only  one  radical  dif- 
ference, the  difference  between  those  who  know  this 
truth  and  those  who  do  not  know  it.  The  distinction 
between  the  disciple  and  the  master  is  one  only  of  de- 
gree, which  will  be  effaced  by  the  expansive  power  of 
growth;  "the  disciple,  when  he  is  perfected,  shall  be 
as  his  Master." 

All  that  hinders  the  individual  from  exercising  the 
full  power  of  the  Infinite  for  any  purpose  whatever  is 
his  lack  of  faith,  his  inability  to  realise  to  the  full  the 
stupendous  truth  that  he  himself  is  the  very  power 
which  he  seeks.  This  was  the  teaching  of  Jesus  as  it  is 
that  of  the  New  Thought ;  and  this  truth  of  the  Divine 
Sonship  of  Man  once  taken  as  the  great  foundation,  a 
magnificent  edifice  of  possibilities  which  "eye  hath  not 
seen,  nor  ear  heard,  neither  hath  entered  into  the  heart 


1 66       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

of  man  to  conceive,"  grows  up  logically  upon  it — a 
glorious  heritage  which  each  one  may  legitimately 
claim  in  right  of  his  common  humanity. 

II 
The  Great  Affirmation 

I  take  it  for  granted  that  my  readers  are  well  ac- 
quainted with  the  part  assigned  to  the  principle  of 
Affirmation  in  the  scheme  of  the  New  Thought.  This 
is  often  a  stumbling-block  to  beginners ;  and  I  feel  sure 
that  even  those  who  are  not  beginners  will  welcome 
every  aid  to  a  deeper  apprehension  of  this  great  central 
truth.  I,  therefore,  purpose  to  examine  the  Bible 
teaching  on  this  important  subject. 

The  professed  object  of  the  Bible  is  to  establish  and 
extend  "the  Kingdom  of  God"  throughout  the  world, 
and  this  can  be  done  only  by  repeating  the  process  from 
one  individual  to  another,  until  the  whole  mass  is 
leavened.  It  is  thus  an  individual  process ;  and,  as  we 
have  seen  in  the  last  chapter,  God  is  Spirit  and  Spirit 
is  Life,  and,  therefore,  the  expansion  of  "the  Kingdom 
of  God"  means  the  expansion  of  the  principle  of  Life 
in  each  individual.  Now  Life,  to  be  life  at  all,  must 
be  Affirmative.  It  is  Life  in  virtue  of  what  it  is,  and 
not  in  virtue  of  what  it  is  not.  The  quantity  of  life 
in  any  particular  case  may  be  very  small;  but,  how- 
ever small  the  amount,  the  quality  is  always  the  same : 


The  Bible  and  the  New  Thought  167 

it  is  the  quality  of  Being,  the  quality  of  Livingness, 
and  not  its  absence,  that  makes  it  what  it  is.  The  dis- 
tinctive character  of  Life,  therefore,  is  that  it  is  Posi- 
tive and  not  Negative;  and  every  degree  of  negative- 
ness,  that  is,  every  limitation,  is  ultimately  traceable 
to  deficiency  of  Life-power. 

Limitations  surround  us  because  we  believe  in  our 
inability  to  do  what  we  desire.  Whenever  we  say  "I 
cannot"  we  are  brought  up  sharp  by  a  limitation,  and 
we  cease  to  exercise  our  thought-power  in  that  direc- 
tion because  we  believe  ourselves  stopped  by  a  blank 
wall  of  impossibility;  and  whenever  this  occurs  we  are 
subjected  to  bondage.  The  ideal  of  perfect  Liberty  \9 
the  converse  of  all  this,  and  follows  a  sequence  which 
does  not  thus  lead  us  into  a  cul-de-sac.  This  sequence 
consists  of  the  three  affirmations:  I  am — therefore  I 
can — therefore  I  will;  and  this  last  affirmation  results 
in  the  projection  of  our  powers,  whether  interior  or 
external,  to  the  accomplishment  of  the  desired  object. 
But  this  last  affirmation  has  its  root  in  the  first;  and 
it  is  because  we  recognise  the  Affirmative  nature  of 
the  Life  that  is  in  us,  or  rather  of  the  Life  which  we 
are,  that  the  power  to  will  or  to  act  positively  has  any 
existence;  and,  therefore,  the  extent  of  our  power  to 
will  and  to  act  positively  and  with  effect,  is  exactly 
measured  by  our  perception  of  the  depth  and  livingness 
of  our  own  Being.  Hence  the  more  fully  we  learn  to 
affirm  that,  the  greater  power  we  are  able  to  exercise. 

Now  the  ideal  of  perfect  Liberty  is  the  entire  ab- 


1 68       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

sence  of  all  limitation,  and  to  have  no  limitation  in 
Being  is  to  be  co-extensive  with  All-Being.  We  are 
all  grammarians  enough  to  know  that  the  use  of  a  pred- 
icate is  to  lead  the  mind  to  contemplate  the  subject  as 
represented  by  that  predicate ;  in  other  words,  it  limits 
our  conception  for  the  time  being  to  that  particular 
aspect  of  the  subject.  Hence  every  predicate,  however 
extensive,  implies  some  limitation  of  the  subject.  But 
the  ideal  subject,  the  absolutely  free  self,  is,  by  the  very 
hypothesis,  without  limitation ;  and,  therefore,  no  pred- 
icate can  be  attached  to  it.  It  stands  as  a  declaration 
of  its  own  Being  without  any  statement  of  what  that 
Being  consists  in,  and  therefore  it  says  of  itself,  not 
"I  am  this  or  that,"  but  simply  I  am.  No  predicate 
can  be  added,  because  the  only  commensurate  predicate 
would  be  the  enumeration  of  Infinity.  Therefore,  both 
logically  and  grammatically,  the  only  possible  statement 
of  a  fully  liberated  being  is  made  in  the  words  I  am. 

I  need  hardly  remind  my  readers  of  the  frequency 
with  which  Jesus  employed  these  emphatic  words.  In 
many  cases  the  translators  have  added  the  word  "He," 
but  they  have  been  careful,  by  putting  it  in  italics,  to 
show  that  it  is  not  in  the  original.  As  grammarians 
and  theologians  they  thought  something  more  was 
wanted  to  complete  the  sense,  and  they  supplied  it 
accordingly;  but  if  we  would  get  at  the  very  words 
as  the  Master  himself  spoke  them,  we  must  strike  out 
this  interpolation.  And  as  soon  as  we  have  done  so 
there  flashes  into  light  the  identity  of  his  statement 


The  Bible  and  the  New  Thought  169 

with  that  made  to  Moses  at  the  burning  bush,  where 
the  full  significance  of  the  words  is  so  obvious  that 
the  translators  were  compelled  to  leave  the  place  of  the 
predicate  in  that  seeming  emptiness  which  comes  from 
filling  all  things. 

Seen  thus,  a  marvellous  light  shines  forth  from  the 
instruction  of  the  Great  Teacher :  for  in  whatever  sense 
we  may  regard  him  as  a  Great  Exception  to  the  weak 
and  limited  aspect  of  humanity  with  which  we  are  only 
too  familiar,  we  must  all  agree  that  his  mission  was  not 
to  render  mankind  hopeless  by  declaring  the  path  of 
advance  barred  against  them,  but  "to  give  light  to  them 
that  sit  in  darkness,"  and  liberty  to  them  that  are 
bound,  by  proclaiming  the  unlimited  possibilities  that 
are  in  man  waiting  only  to  be  called  forth  by  knowl- 
edge of  the  Truth.  And  if  we  suppose  any  personal 
reference  in  his  words,  it  can,  therefore,  be  only  as  the 
Great  Example  of  what  man  has  it  in  him  to  become, 
and  not  as  the  example  of  something  which  man  can 
never  hope  to  be;  an  Exception,  truly,  to  mankind  as 
we  see  them  now,  but  the  Exception  that  proves  the 
rule,  and  sets  the  standard  of  what  each  one  may  be- 
come as  he  attains  to  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the 
fulness  of  Christ. 

Let  us,  therefore,  by  striking  out  this  interpolation, 
restore  the  Master's  words  as  they  stand  in  the  orig- 
inal: "Except  ye  believe  that  I  am,  ye  shall  die  in 
your  sins."  This  is  an  epitome  of  his  teaching. 

"The  last  enemy  that  shall  be  overcome  is  death," 


170       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

and  the  "sting,"  or  fatal  power,  of  death  is  "sin." 
Remove  that,  and  death  has  no  longer  any  dominion 
over  us;  its  power  is  at  an  end.  And  "the  strength 
of  sin  is  the  Law":  sin  is  every  contradiction  of  the 
law  of  Being;  and  the  law  of  Being  is  infinitude;  for 
Being  is  Life,  and  Life  in  its  innermost  essence  is  the 
limitless  I  am.  Dying  in  our  sins  is  thus  not  a  punish- 
ment for  doubting  a  particular  theological  dogma,  but 
it  is  the  unavoidable  natural  consequence  of  not  realis- 
ing, not  believing  in,  the  I  am.  So  long  as  we  fail  to 
realise  its  full  infinitude  in  ourselves,  we  cut  ourselves 
off  from  our  conscious  unity  with  the  Infinite  Life- 
Spirit  which  permeates  all  things.  Without  this  prin- 
ciple we  have  no  alternative  but  to  die — -and  this  be- 
cause of  our  sin,  that  is,  because  of  our  failure  to  con- 
form to  the  true  Law  of  our  Being,  which  is  Life, 
and  not  Death.  We  affirm  Death  and  Negation  con- 
cerning ourselves,  and  therefore  Death  and  Negation 
are  externalised,  and  thus  we  pay  the  penalty  of  not 
believing  in  the  central  Law  of  our  own  Life,  which 
is  the  Law  of  all  Life.  The  Bible  is  the  Book  of 
Principles,  and  therefore  by  "dying"  is  meant  the 
acceptance  of  the  principle  of  the  Negative  which  cul- 
minates in  Death  as  the  sum-total  of  all  limitations,  and 
which  introduces  at  every  step  those  restrictions  which 
are  of  the  nature  of  Death,  because  their  tendency  is 
to  curtail  the  outflowing  fulness  of  Life. 

This,  then,  is  the  very  essence  of  the  teaching  of 
Jesus,  that  unbelief  in  the  limitless  power  of  Life-in- 


The  Bible  and  the  New  Thought  171 

ourselves — in  each  of  us — is  the  one  cause  of  Death 
and  of  all  those  evils  which,  in  greater  or  lesser  meas- 
ure, reproduce  the  restrictive  influences  which  deprive 
Life  of  its  fulness  and  joy.  If  we  would  escape  Death 
and  enter  into  Life,  we  must  each  believe  in  the  I  am 
in  ourselves.  And  the  ground  for  this  belief?  Simply 
that  nothing  else  is  conceivable.  If  our  life  is  not  a 
portion  of  the  life  of  Universal  Spirit,  whence  comes 
it  ?  We  are  because  that  is.  No  other  explanation  is 
possible.  The  unqualified  affirmation  of  our  own  liv- 
ingness  is  not  an  audacious  self-assertion :  it  is  the  only 
logical  outcome  of  the  fact  that  there  is  any  life  any- 
where, and  that  we  are  here  to  think  about  it.  In  the 
sense  of  Universal  Being,  there  can  be  only  One  I  am, 
and  the  understanding  use  of  the  words  by  the  indi- 
vidual is  the  assertion  of  this  fact.  The  forms  of 
manifestation  are  infinite,  but  the  Life  which  is  mani- 
fested is  One,  and  thus  every  thinker  who  recognises 
the  truth  regarding  himself  finds  in  the  I  am  both  him- 
self and  the  totality  of  all  things;  and  thus  he  comes 
to  know  that  in  utilising  the  interior  nature  of  the 
things-  and  persons  about  him,  he  is,  in  effect,  employ- 
ing the  powers  o-f  his  own  life. 

Sometimes  the  veil  which  Jesus  drew  over  this  great 
truth  was  very  transparent.  To  the  Samaritan  woman 
he  spoke  of  it  as  a  spring  o*f  Life  forever  welling  up  in 
the  innermost  recesses  of  man's  being;  and  again,  to 
the  multitude  assembled  at  the  Temple,  he  spoke  of 
it  as  a  river  of  Life  forever  gushing  from  the  secret 


172       The  Hidden  Power  avid  Other  Essays 

sources  of  the  spirit  within  us.  Life,  to  be  ours  at 
all,  must  be  ourselves.  An  energy  which  only  passed 
through  us,  without  being  us,  might  produce  a  sort 
of  galvanic  activity,  but  it  would  not  be  Life.  Life 
can  never  be  a  separate  entity  from  the  individuality 
which  manifests  it;  and  therefore,  even  if  we  con- 
ceive the  life-principle  irt  a  man  so  intensified  as  to 
pulsate  with  what  might  seem  to  us  an  absolutely 
divine  vitality,  it  would  still  be  no  other  than  the 
man  himself.  Thus  Jesus  directs  us  to  no  external 
source  of  life,  but  ever  teaches  that  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  is  within,  and  that  what  is  wanted  is  to  re- 
move those  barriers'  of  ignorance  and  ill-will  which 
prevent  us  from  realising  that  the  great  I  am,  which  is 
the  innermost  Spirit  of  Life  throughout  the  universe, 
is  the  same  I  am  that  I  am,  whoever  I  may  be. 

On  another  memorable  occasion  Jesus  declared 
again  that  the  I  am  is  the  enduring  principle  of  Life. 
It  is  this  that  is  the  Resurrection  and  the  Life;  not, 
as  Martha  supposed,  a  new  principle  to  be  infused 
from  without  at  some  future  time,  but  an  inherent 
core  of  vitality  awaiting  only  its  own  recognition  of 
itself  to  triumph  over  death  and  the  grave.  And  yet, 
again  hear  the  Master's  answer  to  the  inquiring 
Thomas.  How  many  of  us,  like  him,  desire  to  know 
the  way !  To  hear  of  wonderful  powers  latent  in  man 
and  requiring  only  development  is  beautiful  and  hope- 
ful, if  we  could  only  find  out  the  way  to  develop  them; 
but  who  will  show  us  the  way?  The  answer  comes 


The  Bible  and  the  New  Thought  173. 

with  no  uncertain  note.  The  I  am  includes  everything. 
It  is  at  once  "the  Way,  the  Truth,  and  the  Life" :  not 
the  Life  only,  or  the  Truth  only,  but  also  the  Way  by 
which  to  reach  them.  Can  words  be  plainer?  It  is  by 
continually  affirming  and  relying  on  the  I  am  in  our- 
selves as  identical  with  the  I  am  that  is  the  One 
and  Only  Life,  whether  manifested  or  unmanifested, 
in  all  places  of  the  universe,  that  we  shall  find  the  way 
to  the  attainment  of  all  Truth  and  of  all  Life.  Here 
we  have  the  predicate  which  we  are  seeking  to  com- 
plete our  affirmation  regarding  ourselves.  I  am — 
what?  the  Three  things  which  include  all  things: 
Truth,  which  is  all  Knowledge  and  Wisdom;  Life, 
which  is  all  Power  and  Love;  and  the  unfailing  Way 
which  will  lead  us  step  by  step,  if  we  follow  it,  to 
heights  too  sublime  and  environment  too  wide  for  our 
present  juvenile  imaginings  to  picture. 

As  the  New  Testament  centres  around  Jesus,  so 
the  old  Testament  centres  around  Moses,  and  he  also 
declares  the  Great  Affirmation  to  be  the  same.3  For 

3  The  Old  Testament  and  the  New  treat  the  I  AM  from  its 
opposite  poles.  The  Old  Testament  treats  it  from  the  relation 
of  the  Whole  to  the  Part,  while  the  New  Testament  treats  it 
from  the  relation  of  the  Part  to  the  Whole.  This  is  important 
as  explaining  the  relation  between  the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 

(a)  "My  Word  shall  not  return  unto  me  void  but  shall  ac- 
complish that  whereunto  I  send  it." 

(t>)  The  Principle  here  indicated  is  that  of  the  Alternation 
and  Equation  between  Absorption  and  Radiation — a  taking-in 
before,  and  a  giving-out. 

(c)  "Order"— 'Whatever  betrays  this  is  "Disorder." 

(d)  "Conscious"— It  is  the  degree  of  consciousness  that  al- 


174       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

him  God  has  no  name,  but  that  intensely  living  uni- 
versal Life  which  is  all  in  all,  and  no  name  is  suffi- 
cient to  be  its  equivalent.  The  emphatic  words  I  am 
are  the  only  possible  statement  of  the  One-Power 
which  exhibits  itself  as  all  worlds  and  all  living  be- 
ings. It  is  the  Great  I  am  which  forever  unfolds 
itself  in  all  the  infinite  evolutionary  forces  of  the  cos- 
mic scheme,  and  which,  in  marvellous  onward  march, 
develops  itself  into  higher  and  higher  conscious  intelli- 
gence in  the  successive  races  of  mankind,  unrolling  the 
scroll  of  history  as  it  moves  on  from  age  to  age,  work- 
ing out  with  unerring  precision  the  steady  forward 
movement  of  the  whole  towards  that  ultimate  perfec- 
tion in  which  the  work  of  God  will  be  completed.  But 

ways  marks  the  transition  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  Power  of 
Life.  The  Life  of  All  Seven  Principles  must  always  be  present 
in  us,  otherwise  we  should  not  exist  at  all ;  therefore  it  is  the 
degree  in  which  we  learn  to  consciously  function  in  each  of  them 
that  marks  our  advance  into  higher  kingdoms  within  ourselves, 
and  frequently  outside  ourselves  also. 

(e)  The  Central  Radiating  Point  of  our  Individuality  is  One 
with  All-Being. 

(f)  Equilibrium — 'Note    the    difference    between    the    Living 
Equilibrium  of  Alternate  Rhythmic  Pulsation  (the  whole  Pulsa- 
tion Doctrine)  and  the  dead  equilibrium  of  merely  running  down 
to  a  dead  level.     The  former  implies  the  Doctrine  of  the  Return, 
the  Upward  Arc  compensating  the  Downward  Arc — The  dead- 
ness  of  the  latter  results  from  the  absence  of  any  such  com- 
pensation.   The  Upward  Arc  results  from  the  contemplation  of 
the  Highest  Ideal. 

(g)  Spirit  cannot  leave  any  portion  of  its  Nature  behind  it. 
It  must  always  have  all  the  qualities  of  Spirit  in  it,  even  though 
the  lower  parts  of  the  individuality  are  not  yet  conscious  of  it. 

(h)     The  Great  Affirmation  is  The  Guide  to  the  whole  Subject. 


The  Bible  and  the  New  Thought  175 

stupendous  as  is  the  scale  on  which  this  Providential 
Power  reveals  itself  to  Moses  and  the  Prophets,  it  is 
still  nothing  else  than  the  very  same  Power  which 
Jesus  bids  us  realise  in  ourselves. 

The  theatre  of  its  operations  may  be  expanded  to 
the  magnificent  proportions  of  a  world-history,  or  con- 
tracted to  the  sphere  of  a  single  individuality :  the  dif- 
ference is  only  one  of  scale;  but  the  Life-principle  is 
always  the  same.  It  is  always  the  principle  of  confi- 
dent Affirmation  in  the  calm  knowledge  that  all  things 
are  but  manifestations  of  itself,  and  that,  therefore, 
all  must  move  together  in  one  mighty  unity  which 
admits  of  no  discordant  elements.  This  "unity  of  the 
spirit"  once  clearly  grasped,  to  say  I  am  is  to  send 
the  vibrations  of  our  thought-currents  throughout  the 
universe  to  do  our  bidding  when  and  where  we  will; 
and,  conversely,  it  is  to  draw  in  the  vitalising  influ- 
ences of  Infinite  Spirit  as  from  a  boundless  ocean  of 
Life,  which  can  never  be  exhausted  and  from  which 
no  power  can  hold  us  back.  And  all  this  is  so  because 
it  is  the  supreme  law  of  Nature.  It  is  not  the  intro- 
duction of  a  new  order,  but  simply  the  allowing  of 
the  original  and  only  possible  order  to  flow  on  to  its 
legitimate  fulfilment.  A  Divine  Order,  truly,  but  no- 
where shall  we  find  anything  that  is  not  Divine;  and 
it  is  to  the  realisation  of  this  Divine  and  Living  Order 
that  it  is  the  purpose  of  the  Bible  to  lead  us.  But  we 
shall  never  realise  it  around  us  until  we  first  realise  it 
within  us.  We  can  see  God  outside  only  by  the  light 


176       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

of  God  inside;  and  this  light  increases  in  proportion 
as  we  become  conscious  of  the  Divine  nature  of  the 
innermost  I  am  which  is  the  centre  of  our  own  indi- 
viduality. 

Therefore,  it  is  that  Jesus  tells  us  that  the  I  am  is 
"the  door."  It  is  that  central  point  of  our  individual 
Being  which  opens  into  the  whole  illimitable  Life  of 
the  Infinite.  If  we  would  understand  the  old-world 
precept,  "know  thyself,"  we  must  concentrate  our 
thought  more  and  more  closely  upon  our  own  interior 
Life  until  we  touch  its  central  radiating  point,  and 
there  we  shall  find  that  the  door  into  the  Infinite 
is  indeed  opened  to  us,  and  that  we  can  pass  from  the 
innermost  of  our  own  Being  into  the  innermost  of 
All-Being.  This  is  why  Jesus  spoke  of  "the  door" 
as  that  through  which  we  should  pass  in  and  out  and 
find  pasture.  Pasture,  the  feeding  of  every  faculty 
with  its  proper  food,  is  to  be  found  both  on  the  within 
and  the  without.  The  livingness  of  Life  consists  in 
both  concentration  and  externalisation :  it  is  not  the 
dead  equilibrium  of  inertia,  but  the  living  equilibrium 
of  a  vital  and  rhythmic  pulsation.  Involution  and 
evolution  must  forever  alternate,  and  the  door  of  com- 
munication between  them  is  the  I  am  which  is  the  liv- 
ing power  in  both.  Thus  it  is  that  the  Great  Affirma- 
tion is  the  Secret  of  Life,  and  that  to  say  I  am  with  a 
true  understanding  of  all  that  it  implies  is  to  place 
ourselves  in  touch  with  all  the  powers  of  the  Infinite. 

This  is  the  Universal  and  Eternal  Affirmation  to 


The  Bible  and  the  New  Thought  177 

which  no  predicate  is  attached;  and  all  particular  af- 
firmations will  be  found  to  be  only  special  differen- 
tiations of  this  all-embracing  one.  I  will  this  or  that 
particular  thing  because  I  know  that  I  can  bring  it 
into  externalisation,  and  I  know  that  I  can  because  I 
know  that  I  am,  and  so  we  always  come  back  to  the 
great  central  Affirmation  of  All-Being.  Search  the 
Scriptures  and  you  will  find  that  from  first  to  last  they 
teach  only  this:  that  every  human  soul  is  an  mdivid- 
ualisation  of  that  Universal  Being,  or  All-Spirit,  which 
we  call  God,  and  that  Spirit  can  never  be  shorn  of  its 
powers,  but  like  Fire,  which  is  its  symbol,  must  always 
be  fully  and  perfectly  itself,  which  is  Life  in  all  its 
unlimited  fulness. 

In  assigning  to  Affirmation,  therefore,  the  impor- 
tance which  it  does,  the  New  Thought  movement  is  at 
one  with  the  teaching  of  Jesus  and  Moses  and  of  the 
entire  Bible.  And  the  reason  is  clear.  There  is  only 
one  Truth,  and  therefore  careful  seeking  can  bring 
men  only  to  the  same  Truth,  whether  they  be  Bible- 
writers  or  any  other.  The  Bible  derives  its  authority 
from  the  inherent  truth  of  the  things  it  tells  of,  and 
not  vice  versa ;  and  if  these  things  be  true  at  all,  they 
would  be  equally  true  even  though  no  Bible  had  ever 
been  written.  But,  taking  the  Great  Affirmation  as 
our  guide,  we  shall  find  that  the  system  taught  by  the 
Bible  is  scientific  and  logical  throughout,  and  there- 
fore any  other  system  which  is  scientifically  true  will 
be  found  to  correspond  with  it  in  substance,  however 


178       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

it  may  differ  from  it  in  form ;  and  thus,  in  their  state- 
ments regarding  the  power  of  Affirmation,  the  expo- 
nents of  the  New  Thought  broach  no  new-fangled 
absurdity,  but  only  reiterate  a  great  truth  which  has 
been  before  the  world,  though  very  imperfectly  recog- 
nised, for  thousands  of  years. 

in 

The  Father 

If,  as  we  have  seen,  "the  Son"  is  the  differentiating 
principle  of  Spirit,  giving  rise  to  innumerable  indi- 
vidualities, "the  Father*'  is  the  unifying  principle  by 
which  these  innumerable  individualities  are  bound  to- 
gether into  one  common  life,  and  the  necessity  for 
recognising  this  great  basis  of  the  universal  harmony 
forms  the  foundation  of  Jesus'  teaching  on  the  subject 
of  Worship.  "Woman,  believe  me,  the  hour  cometh, 
when  neither  in  this  mountain,  nor  yet  at  Jerusalem, 
shall  ye  worship  the  Father.  Ye  worship  that  which 
ye  know  not;  we  worship  that  which  we  know;  for 
salvation  is  from  the  Jews.  But  the  hour  cometh  and 
now  is  when  the  true  worshippers  shall  worship  the 
Father  in  spirit  and  truth"  (Revised  Version).  In 
these  few  words  the  Great  Teacher  sums  up  the  whole 
subject.  He  lays  particular  stress  on  the  kind  of  wor- 
ship that  he  means.  It  is,  before  all  things,  founded 
upon  knowledge. 


The  Bible  and  the  New  Thought          179 

"We  worship  that  which  we  know,"  and  it  is  this 
knowledge  that  gives  the  worship  a  healthful  and  life- 
giving  quality.  It  is  not  the  ignorant  worship  of  won- 
derment and  fear,  a  mere  abasement  of  ourselves  be- 
fore some  vast,  vague,  unknown  power,  which  may 
injure  us  if  we  do  not  find  out  how  to  propitiate  it; 
but  it  is  a  definite  act  performed  with  a  definite  pur- 
pose, which  means  that  it  is  the  employment  of  one  of 
our  natural  faculties  upon  its  proper  object  in  an  in- 
telligent manner.  The  ignorant  Samaritan  worship  is 
better  than  no  worship  at  all,  for  at  least  it  realises 
the  existence  of  some  centre  around  which  a  man's  life 
should  revolve,  something  to  prevent  the  aimless  dis- 
persion of  His  powers  for  want  of  a  centripetal  force 
to  bind  them  together;  and  even  the  crudest  notion  of 
prayer,  as  a  mere  attempt  to  induce  God  to  change  his 
mind,  is  at  least  a  first  step  towards  the  truth  that 
full  supply  for  all  our  needs  may  be  drawn  from  the 
Infinite.  Still,  such  worship  as  this  is  hampered  with 
perplexities,  and  can  give  only  a  feeble  answer  to  the 
atheistical  sneer  which  asks,  "What  is  man,  that  God 
should  be  mindful  of  him,  a  momentary  atom  among 
unnumbered  worlds?" 

Now  the  teaching  of  Jesus  throws  all  these  per- 
plexities aside  with  the  single  word  "knowledge." 
There  is  only  one  true  way  of  doing  anything,  and 
that  is  knowing  exactly  what  it  is  we  want  to  do,  and 
knowing  exactly  why  we  want  to  do  it.  All  other 
doing  is  blundering.  We  may  blunder  into  the  right 


180       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

thing  sometimes,  but  we  cannot  make  this  our  prin- 
ciple of  life  to  all  eternity;  and  if  we  have  to  give  up 
the  blunder  method  eventually,  why  not  give  it  up  now, 
and  begin  at  once  to  profit  by  acting  according  to 
intelligible  principle?  The  knowledge  that  "the  Son," 
as  individualised  Spirit,  has  his  correlative  in  "the 
Father,"  as  Universal  Spirit,  affords  the  clue  we  need. 
In  whatever  way  we  may  attempt  to  explain  it,  the 
fact  remains  that  volition  is  the  fundamental  character- 
istic of  Spirit.  We  may  speak  of  conscious,  or  sub- 
conscious or  super-conscious  action;  but  in  whatever 
way  we  may  picture  to  ourselves  the  condition  of  the 
agent  as  contemplating  his  own  action,  a  general  pur- 
poseful lifeward  tendency  becomes  abundantly  evident 
on  any  enlarged  view  of  Nature,  whether  seen  from 
without  or  from  within,  and  we  may  call  this  by  the 
general  name  of  volition.  But  the  error  we  have  to 
avoid  is  that  of  supposing  volition  to  take  the  same 
form  in  Universal  Spirit  as  in  individualised  Spirit. 
The  very  terms  "universal"  and  "individual"  forbid 
this.  For  the  universal,  as  such,  to  exercise  specific 
volition,  concentrating  itself  upon  the  details  of  a  spe- 
cific case,  would  be  for  it  to  pass  into  individualisation, 
and  to  cease  to  be  the  Absolute  and  Infinite ;  it  would 
be  no  longer  "the  Father,"  but  "the  Son."  It  is  there- 
fore exactly  by  not  exercising  specific  volition  that  "the 
Father"  continues  to  be  "the  Father,"  or  the  Great 
Unifying  Principle.  But  the  volitional  quality  is  not 
on  this  account  absent  from  Spirit  in  the  Universal; 


The  Bible  and  the  New  Thought  181 

for  otherwise  whence  would  that  quality  appear  in  our- 
selves? It  is  present;  but  according  to  the  nature  of 
the  plane  on  which  it  is  acting.  The  Universal  is  not 
the  Specific,  and  everything  on  the  plane  of  the  Uni- 
versal must  partake  of  the  nature  of  that  plane.  Hence 
volition  in  "the  Father"  is  not  specific ;  and  that  which 
is  not  specific  and  individual  must  be  generic.  Gen- 
eric volition,  therefore,  is  that  mode  of  volition  which 
belongs  to  the  Universal,  and  generic  volition  is  ten- 
dency. This  is  the  solution  of  the  enigma,  and  this 
solution  is  given,  not  obscurely,  in  Jesus'  statement 
that  "the  Father"  seeks  those  true  worshippers  who 
worship  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 

For  what  do  we  mean  by  tendency?  From  the  root 
of  tendere,  to  stretch;  it  signifies  a  pushing  out  in  a 
certain  definite  direction,  the  tension  of  some  force 
seeking  to  expand  itself.  What  force  ?  The  Universal 
Life-Principle,  for  "the  Spirit  is  Life."  In  the  lan- 
guage of  modern  science  this  "seeking"  on  the  part 
of  "the  Father"  is  the  expansive  pressure  of  the  Uni- 
versal Life-Principle  seeking  the  line  of  least  resist- 
ance, along  which  to  flow  into  the  fullest  manifesta- 
tion of  individualised  Life.  It  is  a  tendency  which 
will  take  manifested  form  according  to  the  degree  in 
which  it  meets  with  reception. 

St.  John  says,  "This  is  the  boldness  that  we  have 
towards  him,  that  if  we  ask  anything  according  to  His 
will,  He  heareth  us;  and  if  we  know  that  He  heareth 
us  whatsoever  we  ask,  we  know  that  we  have  the  peti- 


1 82       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

tions  that  we  have  asked  of  Him"  (i  John  v.  14). 
Now  according  to  the  popular  notion  of  "the  will  of 
God,"  this  passage  entirely  loses  its  value,  because  it 
makes  everything  depend  on  our  asking  "according 
to  His  will,"  and  if  we  start  with  the  idea  of  an  indi- 
vidual act  of  the  Divine  volition  in  each  separate  case, 
nothing  short  of  a  special  revelation  continually  re- 
peated could  inform  us  what  the  Divine  will  in  each 
particular  instance  was.  Viewed  in  this  light,  this 
passage  is  a  mere  jeering  at  our  incapacity.  But  when 
once  we  realise  that  "the  will  of  God"  is  an  invariable 
law  of  tendency,  we  have  a  clear  standard  by  which  to 
test  whether  we  may  rightly  expect  to  get  what  we 
desire.  We  can  study  this  law  of  tendency  as  we 
would  any  other  law,  and  it  is  this  study  that  is  the 
essence  of  true  worship. 

The  word  "worship"  means  to  count  worthy;  to 
count  worthy,  that  is,  of  observation.  The  proverb 
says  that  "imitation  is  the  sincerest  form  of  flattery" ; 
more  truly  we  may  say  that  it  is  the  sincerest  worship. 
Hence  the  true  worship  is  the  study  of  the  Universal 
Life-Principle  "the  Father,"  in  its  nature  and  in  its 
modes  of  action ;  and  when  we  have  thus  realised  "the 
Law  of  God,"  the  law  that  is  inherent  in  the  nature  of 
Infinite  Being,  we  shall  know  that  by  conforming  our 
own  particular  action  to  this  generic  law,  we  shall  find 
that  this  law  will  in  every  instance  work  out  the  re- 
sults that  we  desire.  This  is  nothing  more  or  less 
miraculous  than  what  occurs  in  every  case  of  applied 


The  Bible  and  the  New  Thought          183 

science.  He  only  is  the  true  chemist  or  engineer  who, 
by  first  learning  how  to  obey  the  generic  tendency  of 
natural  laws,  is  able  to  command  them  to  the  fulfil- 
ment of  his  individual  purposes ;  no  other  method  will 
succeed.  Similarly  with  the  student  of  the  divine  mys- 
tery of  Life.  He  must  first  learn  the  great  laws  of  its 
generic  tendency,  and  then  he  will  be  in  a  position  to 
apply  that  tendency  to  the  working  of  any  specific 
effect  he  will. 

Common  sense  tells  us  what  the  law  of  this  tendency 
must  be.  The  Master  taught  that  a  house  divided 
against  itself  cannot  stand ;  and  for  the  Life-Principle 
to  do  anything  restrictive  of  the  fullest  expansion  of 
life,  would  be  for  it  to  act  to  its  own  destruction.  The 
test,  therefore,  in  every  case,  whether  our  intention 
falls  within  the  scope  of  the  great  law,  is  this :  Does 
it  operate  for  the  expansion  or  for  the  restriction  of 
life?  and  according  to  the  answer  we  can  say  posi- 
tively whether  or  not  our  purpose  is  according  to  "the 
will  of  God."  Therefore  so  long  as  we  work  within 
the  scope  of  this  generic  "will  of  the  Father"  we  need 
have  no  fear  of  the  Divine  Providence,  as  an  agency, 
acting  adversely  to  us.  We  may  dismiss  this  bugbear, 
for  we  ourselves  are  manifestations  of  the  very  power 
which  we  call  "the  Father."  The  I  am  is  one;  and  so 
long  as  we  preserve  this  unity  by  conforming  to  the 
generic  nature  of  the  I  am  in  the  universal,  it  will 
certainly  never  destroy  the  unity  by  entering  upon  a 
specific  course  of  action  on  its  own  account. 


184       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

Here,  then,  we  find  the  secret  of  power.  It  is  con- 
tained in  the  true  worship  of  "the  Father,"  which  is 
the  constant  recognition  of  the  lifegivingness  of  Orig- 
inating Spirit,  and  of  the  fact  that  we,  as  individuals, 
still  continue  to  be  portions  of  that  Spirit;  and  that 
therefore  the  law  of  our  nature  is  to  be  perpetually 
drawing  life  from  the  inexhaustible  stores  of  the  In- 
finite— not  bottles  of  water-of-life  mixed  with  other 
ingredients  and  labelled  for  this  or  that  particular  pur- 
pose, but  the  full  flow  of  the  pure  stream  itself,  which 
we  are  free  to  use  for  any  purpose  we  desire.  "Who- 
soever will,  let  him  take  the  water  of  life  freely."  It 
is  thus  that  the  worship  of  "the  Father"  becomes  the 
central  principle  of  the  individual  life,  not  as  curtail- 
ing our  liberty,  but  as  affording  the  only  possible  basis 
for  it.  As  a  planetary  system  would  be  impossible 
without  a  central  controlling  sun,  so  harmonious  life 
is  impossible  without  the  recognition  of  Infinite  Spirit 
as  that  Power,  whose  generic  tendency  serves  to  con- 
trol each  individual  being  into  its  proper  orbit.  This 
is  the  teaching  of  the  Bible,  and  it  is  also  the  teaching 
of  the  New  Thought,  which  says  that  life  with  all  its 
limitless  possibilities  is  a  continual  outflow  from  the 
Infinite  which  we  may  turn  in  any  direction  that  we 
desire. 

But,  it  may  be  asked,  what  happens  if  we  go  counter 
to  this  generic  law  of  Spirit?  This  is  an  important 
question,  and  I  must  leave  the  answer  for  further  con- 
sideration. 


The  Bible  and  the  New  Thought  185 

IV 

Conclusion 

I  concluded  my  last  chapter  with  the  momentous 
question,  What  happens  if  we  go  counter  to  the  generic 
law  of  Spirit  ?  What  happens  if  we  go  counter  to  any 
natural  law?  Obviously,  the  law  goes  counter  to  us. 
We  can  use  the  laws  of  Nature,  but  we  cannot  alter 
them.  By  opposing  any  natural  law  we  place  ourselves 
in  an  inverted  position  with  regard  to  it,  and  therefore, 
viewed  from  this  false  standpoint,  it  appears  as  though 
the  law  itself  were  working  against  us  with  definite 
purpose.  But  the  inversion  proceeds  entirely  from 
ourselves,  and  not  from  any  change  in  the  action  of  the 
law.  The  law  of  Spirit,  like  all  other  natural  laws,  is 
in  itself  impersonal;  but  we  carry  into  it,  so  to  speak, 
the  reflection  of  our  own  personality,  though  we  can-  \ 
not  alter  its  generic  character;  and  therefore,  if  we 
oppose  its  generic  tendency  towards  the  universal  good, 
we  shall  find  in  it  the  reflection  of  our  own  opposition 
and  waywardness. 

The  law  of  Spirit  proceeds  unalterably  on  its  course, 
and  what  is  spoken  of  in  popular  phraseology  as  the 
Divine  wrath  is  nothing  else  than  the  reflex  action 
which,  naturally  follows  when  we  put  ourselves  in 
opposition  to  this  law.  The  evil  that  results  is  not  a 
personal  intervention  of  the  Universal  Spirit,  which 
would  imply  its  entering  into  specific  manifestation, 


1 86       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

but  it  is  the  natural  outcome  of  the  causes  that  we 
ourselves  have  set  in  motion.  But  the  effect  to  our- 
selves will  be  precisely  the  same  as  if  they  were 
brought  about  by  the  volition  of  an  adverse  person- 
ality, though  we  may  not  realise  that  in  truth  the  per- 
sonal element  is  our  own.  And  if  we  are  at  all  aware 
of  the  wonderfully  complex  nature  of  man,  and  the 
various  interweavings  of  principles  which  unite  the 
material  body  at  one  end  of  the  scale  to  the  purely 
spiritual  Ego  at  the  other,  we  shall  have  some  faint 
idea  of  on  how  vast  a  field  these  adverse  influences 
may  operate,  not  being  restricted  to  the  plane  of  out- 
ward manifestation,  but  acting  equally  on  those  inner 
planes  which  give  rise  to  the  outer  and  are  of  a  more 
enduring  nature. 

Thus  the  philosophic  study  of  Spirit,  so  far  from 
affording  any  excuse  for  laxity  of  conduct,  adds  an 
emphatic  definiteness  to  the  Bible  exhortation  to  flee 
from  the  wrath  of  God.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
delivers  us  from  groundless  terrors,  the  fear  lest  our 
repentance  should  not  be  accepted,  the  fear  lest  we 
should  be  rejected  for  our  inability  to  subscribe  to 
some  traditional  dogma,  the  fear  of  utter  uncertainty 
regarding  the  future — fears  which  make  life  bitter 
and  the  prospect  of  death  appalling  to  those  who  are 
in  bondage  to  them.  The  knowledge  that  we  are  deal- 
ing with  a  power  which  is  no  respecter  of  persons,  and 
in  which  is  no  variableness,  which  is,  in  fact,  an  un- 


The  Bible  and  the  New  Thought  187 

alterable   Law,   at  once   delivers   us    from   all   these 
terrors. 

The  very  unchangeableness  of  Law  makes  it  certain 
that  no  amount  of  past  opposition  to  it,  whether  from 
ignorance  or  wilfulness,  will  prevent  it  from  working 
in  accordance  with  its  own  beneficent  and  life-giving 
character  as  soon  as  we  quit  our  inverted  position  and 
place  ourselves  in  our  true  relation  towards  it.  The 
laws  of  Nature  do  not  harbour  revenge;  and  once  we 
adapt  our  methods  to  their  character,  they  will  work 
for  us  without  taking  any  retrospective  notice  of  our 
past  errors.  The  law  of  Spirit  may  be  more  complex 
than  that  of  electricity,  because,  as  expressed  in  us,  it 
is  the  law  of  conscious  individuality ;  but  it  is  none  the 
less  a  purely  natural  law,  and  follows  the  universal 
rule,  and  therefore  we  may  dismiss  from  our  minds,  as 
a  baseless  figment,  the  fear  of  any  Divine  power  treas- 
uring up  anger  against  us  on  account  of  bygones,  if 
we  are  sincerely  seeking  to  do  what  is  right  now. 
The  new  causes  which  we  put  in  motion  now  will  pro- 
duce their  proper  effect  as  surely  as  the  old  causes 
did;  and  thus  by  inaugurating  a  new  sequence  of  good 
we  shall  cut  off  the  old  sequence  of  evil.  Only,  of 
course,  we  cannot  expect  to  bring  about  the  new  se- 
quence while  continuing  to  repeat  the  old  causes,  for 
the  fruit  must  necessarily  reproduce  the  nature  of  the 
seed.  Thus  we  are  the  masters  of  the  situation,  and, 
whether  in  this  world  or  the  next,  it  rests  with  our- 


1 88       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

selves  either  to  perpetuate  the  evil  or  to  wipe  it  out 
and  put  the  good  in  its  place.  And  it  may  be  noticed 
in  passing  that  the  great  central  Christian  doctrine  is 
based  upon  the  most  perfect  knowledge  of  this  law, 
and  is  the  practical  application  to  a  profound  problem 
of  the  deepest  psychological  science.  But  this  is  a 
large  subject,  and  cannot  be  suitably  dealt  with  here. 
Much  has  been  written  and  said  on  the  origin  of  evil, 
and  a  volume  might  be  filled  with  the  detailed  study 
of  the  subject;  but  for  all  practical  purposes  it  may  be 
summed  up  in  the  one  word  limitation.  For  what  is 
the  ultimate  cause  of  all  strife,  whether  public  or 
private,  but  the  notion  that  the  supply  of  good  is 
limited?  With  the  bulk  of  mankind  this  is  a  fixed 
idea,  and  they  therefore  argue  that  because  there  is 
only  a  certain  limited  quantity  of  good,  the  share  in 
their  possession  can  be  increased  only  by  correspond- 
ingly diminishing  some  one  else's  share.  Any  one 
entertaining  the  same  idea,  naturally  resents  the  at- 
tempt to  deprive  him  of  any  portion  of  this  limited 
quantity;  and  hence  arises  the  whole  crop  of  envy, 
hatred,  fraud,  and  violence,  whether  between  indi- 
viduals, classes,  or  nations.  If  people  only  realised 
the  truth  that  "good"  is  not  a  certain  limited  quantity, 
but  a  stream  continuously  flowing  from  the  exhaust- 
less  Infinite,  and  ready  to  take  any  direction  we  choose 
to  give  it,  and  that  each  one  is  able  by  the  action  of 
his  own  thought  to  draw  from  it  indefinitely,  the  sub- 
stitution of  this  new  and  true  idea  for  the  old  and 


The  Bible  and  the  New  Thought  189 

false  one  of  limitation  would  at  one  stroke  remove  all 
strife  and  struggle  from  the  world;  every  man  would 
find  a  helper  instead  of  a  competitor  in  every  other, 
and  the  very  laws  of  Nature,  which  now  so  often  seem 
to  war  against  us,  would  be  found  a  ceaseless  source 
of  profit  and  delight. 

"They  could  not  enter  into  rest  because  of  unbe- 
lief," "they  limited  the  Holy  One  of  Israel" :  in  these 
words  the  Bible,  like  the  New  Thought,  traces  all  the 
sorrow  of  the  world — that  terrible  W elischmerz  which 
expresses  itself  with  such  direful  influence  through 
the  pessimistic  literature  of  the  day — to  the  one  root 
of  a  false  belief,  the  belief  in  man's  limitation.  Only 
substitute  for  it  the  true  belief,  and  the  evil  would 
be  at  an  end.  Now  the  ground  of  this  true  belief  is 
that  clear  apprehension  of  "the  Father"  which,  as  I 
have  shown,  forms  the  basis  of  Jesus'  teaching.  If, 
from  one  point  of  view,  the  Intelligent  Universal  Life- 
Principle  is  a  Power  to  be  obeyed,  in  the  same  sense  in 
which  we  have  to  obey  all  the  laws  of  Nature,  from  the 
opposite  point  of  view,  it  is  a  power  to  be  used.  We 
must  never  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  obedience  to  any 
natural  law  in  its  generic  tendency  necessarily  carries 
with  it  a  corresponding  power  of  using-  that  law  in 
specific  application.  This  is  the  old  proverb  that 
knowledge  is  power.  It  is  the  old  paradox*  with  which 
Jesus  posed  the  ignorant  scribes  as  to  how  David's 
Lord  could  also  be  his  Son.  The  word  "David" 
means  "Beloved"  and  to  be  beloved  implies  that  recip- 


190       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

rocal  sympathy  which  is  intuitive  knowledge.  Hence 
David,  the  Beloved,  is  the  man  who  has  realised  his 
true  relation  as  a  Son  to  his  Father  and  who  is  "in 
tune  with  the  Infinite."  On  the  other  hand,  this 
"Infinite"  is  his  "Lord"  because  it  is  the  complex 
of  all  those  unchangeable  Laws  from  which  it  is  im- 
possible to  swerve  without  suffering  consequent  loss 
of  power;  and  on  the  other,  this  knowledge  of  the 
innermost  principles  of  All-Being  puts  him  in  possession 
of  unlimited  powers  which  he  can  apply  to  any  specific 
purpose  that  he  will ;  and  thus  he  stands  towards  them 
in  the  position  of  a  father  who  has  authority  to  com- 
mand the  services  of  his  son.  Thus  David's  "Lord" 
becomes  by  a  natural  transition  his  "Son." 

And  it  is  precisely  in  this  that  the  principle  of  "Son- 
ship"  consists.  It  is  the  raising  of  man  from  the  con- 
dition of  bondage  as  a  servant  by  reason  of  limitation 
to  the  status  of  a  son  by  the  entire  removal  of  all 
limitations.  To  believe  and  act  on  this  principle  is  to 
"believe  on  the  Son  of  God,"  and  a  practical  belief  in 
our  own  sonship  thus  sets  us  free  from  all  evil  and 
from  all  fear  of  evil — it  brings  us  out  of  the  kingdom 
of  death  into  the  kingdom  of  Life.  Like  everything 
else,  it  has  to  grow,  but  the  good  seed  of  liberating 
Truth  once  planted  in  the  heart  is  sure  to  germinate, 
and  the  more  we  endeavour  to  foster  its  growth  by  seek- 
ing to  grasp  with  our  understanding  the  reason  of  these 
things  and  to  realise  our  knowledge  in  practice,  the 
more  rapidly  we  shall  find  our  lives  increase  in  living- 


The  Bible  and  the  New  Thought  191 

ness — a  joy  to  ourselves,  a  brightness  to  our  homes, 
and  a  blessing  expanding  to  all  around  in  ever-widen- 
ing circles. 

Enough  has  now  been  said  to  show  the  identity  of 
principle  between  the  teaching  of  the  Bible  and  that 
of  the  New  Thought.  Treated  in  detail,  the  subject 
would  extend  to  many  volumes  explanatory  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments,  and  if  that  great  work  were  ever 
carried  out  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  the  agree- 
ment would  be  found  to  extend  to  the  minutest  particu- 
lars. But  the  hints  contained  in  the  foregoing  papers 
will,  I  hope,  suffice  to  show  that  there  is  nothing  antag- 
onistic between  the  two  systems,  or,  rather,  to  show 
that  they  are  one — the  statement  of  the  One  Truth 
which  always  has  been  and  always  will  be.  And  if  what 
I  have  now  endeavoured  to  put  before  my  readers 
should  lead  any  of  them  to  follow  up  the  subject  more 
fully  for  themselves,  I  can  promise  them  an  inexhaus- 
tible store  of  wonder,  delight,  and  strength  in  the  study 
of  the  Old  Book  in  the  light  of  the  New  Thought. 

1902. 


XX 

JACHIN  AND  BOAZ 

"AND  he  reared  up  the  pillars  before  the  temple,  one 
on  the  right  hand,  and  the  other  on  the  left ;  and  called 
the  name  of  that  on  the  right  hand  Jachin,  and  the 
name  of  that  on  the  left  Boaz."  (II  Chron.  iii,  17.) 

Very  likely  some  of  us  have  wondered  what  was  the 
meaning  of  these  two  mysterious  pillars  set  up  by  Sol- 
omon in  front  of  his  temple,  and  why  they  were  called 
by  these  strange  names ;  and  then  we  have  dropped  the 
subject  as  one  of  those  inexplicable  things  handed  down 
in  the  Bible  from  old  time  which,  we  suppose,  can  have 
no  practical  interest  for  us  at  the  present  day.  Never- 
theless, these  strange  names  are  not  without  a  purpose. 
They  contain  the  key  to  the  entire  Bible  and  to  the 
whole  order  of  Nature,  and  as  emblems  of  the  two 
great  principles  that  are  the  pillars  of  the  universe,  they 
fitly  stood  at  the  threshold  of  that  temple  which  was 
designed  to  symbolise  all  the  mysteries  of  Being. 

In  all  the  languages  of  the  Semitic  stock  the  letters 
J  and  Y  are  interchangeable,  as  we  see  in  the  modern 
Arabic  "Yakub"  for  "Jacob"  and  the  old  Hebrew 
"Yaveh"  for  "Jehovah."  This  gives  us  the  form 

192 


Jachin  and  Boas  193 

"Yachin,"  which  at  once  reveals  the  enigma.  The 
word  Yak  signifies  "one" ;  and  the  termination  "hi,"  or 
"hin,"  is  an  intensitive  which  may  be  rendered  in 
English  by  "only."  Thus  the  word  "Jachin"  resolves 
itself  into  the  words  "one  only,"  the  all-embracing 
Unity. 

The  meaning  of  Boaz  is  clearly  seen  in  the  book  of 
Ruth.  There  Boaz  appears  as  the  kinsman  exercising 
the  right  of  pre-emption  so  familiar  to  those  versed  in 
Oriental  law — a  right  which  has  for  its  purpose  the 
maintenance  of  the  Family  as  the  social  unit.  Accord- 
ing to  this  widely-spread  custom,  the  purchaser,  who  is 
not  a  member  of  the  family,  buys  the  property  subject 
to  the  right  of  kinsmen  within  certain  degrees  to  pur- 
chase it  back,  and  so  bring  it  once  more  into  the  family 
to  which  it  originally  belonged.  Whatever  may  be  our 
personal  opinions  regarding  the  vexed  questions  of 
dogmatic  theology,  we  can  all  agree  as  to  the  general 
principle  indicated  in  the  role  acted  by  Boaz.  He  brings 
back  the  alienated  estate  into  the  family — that  is  to  say, 
he  "redeems"  it  in  the  legal  sense  of  the  word.  As  a 
matter  of  law  his  power  to  do  this  results  from  his 
membership  in  the  family ;  but  his  motive  for  doing  it 
is  love,  his  affection  for  Ruth.  Without  pushing  the 
analogy  too  far  we  may  say,  then,  that  Boaz  represents 
the  principle  of  redemption  in  the  widest  sense  of 
reclaiming  an  estate  by  right  of  relationship,  while  the 
innermost  moving  power  in  its  recovery  is  Love. 

This  is  what  Boaz  stands  for  in  the  beautiful  story 


194       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

of  Ruth,  and  there  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  let 
the  same  name  stand  for  the  same  thing  when  we  seek 
the  meaning  of  the  mysterious  pillar.  Thus  the  two 
pillars  typify  Unity  and  the  redeeming  power  of  Love, 
with  the  significant  suggestion  that  the  redemption  re- 
sults from  the  Unity.  They  correspond  with  the  two 
"bonds,"  or  uniting  principles  spoken  of  by  St.  Paul, 
"the  Unity  of  the  Spirit  which  is  the  Bond  of  Peace," 
and  "Love,  which  is  the  Bond  of  Perfectness." 

The  former  is  Unity  of  Being;  the  latter,  Unity  of 
Intention :  and  the  principle  of  this  Dual-Unity  is  well 
illustrated  by  the  story  of  Boaz.  The  whole  story  pro- 
ceeds on  the  idea  of  the  Family  as  the  social  unit,  the 
root-conception  of  all  Oriental  law,  and  if  we  consider 
the  Family  in  this  light,  we  shall  see  how  exactly  it 
embodies  the  two- fold  idea  of  Jachin  and  Boaz,  unity 
of  Being  and  unity  of  Thought.  The  Family  forms 
a  unit  because  all  the  members  proceed  from  a  com- 
mon progenitor,  and  are  thus  all  of  one  blood;  but, 
although  this  gives  them  a  natural  unity  of  Being  of 
which  they  cannot  divest  themselves,  it  is  not  enough  in 
itself  to  make  them  a  united  family,  as  unfortunately 
experience  too  often  shows.  Something  more  is 
wanted,  and  that  something  is  Love.  There  must  be  a 
personal  union  brought  about  by  sympathetic  Thought 
to  complete  the  natural  union  resulting  from  birth. 
The  inherent  unity  must  be  expressed  by  the  Individual 
volition  of  each  member,  and  thus  the  Family  becomes 


Jachin  and  Boaz  195 

the  ideally  perfect  social  unit ;  a  truth  to  which  St.  Paul 
alludes  when  he  calls  God  the  Father  from  Whom  every 
family  in  heaven  and  on  earth  is  named.  Thus  Boaz 
stands  for  the  principle  which  brings  back  to  the  origi- 
nal Unity  that  which  has  been  for  a  time  separated  from 
it.  There  has  never  been  any  separation  of  actual 
Being — the  family  right  always  subsisted  in  the  prop- 
erty even  while  in  the  hands  of  strangers,  otherwise  it 
could  never  have  been  brought  back ;  but  it  requires  the 
Love  principle  to  put  this  right  into  effective  operation. 

When  this  begins  to  work  in  the  knowledge  of  its 
right  to  do  so,  then  there  is  the  return  of  the  individual 
to  the  Unity,  and  the  recognition  of  himself  as  the  par- 
ticular expression  of  the  Universal  in  virtue  of  his  own 
nature. 

These  two  pillars,  therefore,  stand  for  the  two  great 
spiritual  principles  that  are  the  basis  of  all  Life :  Jachin 
typifying  the  Unity  resulting  from  Being,  and  Boaz 
typifying  the  Unity  resulting  from  Love.  In  this  Dual- 
Unity  we  find  the  key  to  all  conceivable  involution  or 
evolution  of  Spirit ;  and  it  is  therefore  not  without  rea- 
son that  the  record  of  these  two  ancient  pillars  has 
been  preserved  in  our  Scriptures.  And  finally  we  may 
take  this  as  an  index  to  the  character  of  our  Scriptures 
generally.  They  contain  infinite  meanings;  and  often 
those  passages  which  appear  on  the  surface  to  be  most 
meaningless  will  be  found  to  possess  the  deepest  sig- 
nificance. The  Book,  which  we  often  read  so  super- 


196       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

ficially,  hides  beneath  its  sometimes  seemingly  trivial 
words  the  secrets  of  other  things.  The  twin  pillars 
Jachin  and  Boaz  bear  witness  to  this  truth.1 

1  The  following  comment  was  made  by  Judge  Troward,  after 
the  publication  of  this  paper  in  Expression: 

"The  Two  Pillars  of  the  Universe  are  Personality  and  Mathe- 
matics, represented  by  Boaz  and  Jachin  respectively.  This  is  the 
broadest  simplification  to  which  it  is  possible  to  reduce  things. 
Balance  consists  in  preserving  the  Equilibrium  or  Alternating 
Current  between  these  two  Principles.  Personality  is  the  Abso- 
lute Factor.  Mathematics  are  the  Relative  Factor,  for  they 
merely  Measure  different  Rates  or  Scales.  They  are  absolute 
in  this  respect.  A  particular  scale  having  been  selected  all  its 
sequences  will  follow  by  an  inexorable  Law  of  Order  and  Pro- 
portion; but  the  selection  of  the  scale  and  the  change  from  one 
scale  to  another  rests  entirely  with  Personality.  What  Per- 
sonality can  not  do  is  to  make  one  Scale  produce  the  results  of 
another,  but  it  can  set  aside  one  scale  and  substitute  another  for 
it.  Hence  Personality  contains  in  itself  the  Universal  Scale,  or 
can  either  accommodate  itself  to  lower  rates  of  motion  already 
established,  or  can  raise  them  to  its  own  rate  of  motion.  Hence 
Personality  is  the  grand  Ultimate  Fact  in  all  things. 

"Different  personalities  should  be  regarded  as  different  degrees 
of  consciousness.  They  are  different  degrees  of  emergence  of 
The  Power  that  knows  Itself." 


XXI 
HEPHZIBAH 

"Tnou  shalt  no  more  be  termed  Forsaken ;  neither  shall 
thy  land  any  more  be  termed  Desolate ;  but  thou  shalt 
be  called  Hephzibah,  and  thy  land  Beulah :  for  the  Lord 
delighteth  in  thee,  and  thy  land  shall  be  married" 
(Isaiah  Ixii,  4) .  The  name  Hephzibah — or,  as  it  might 
be  written,  Hafzbah — conveys  a  very  distinct  idea  to 
any  one  who  has  lived  in  the  East,  and  calls  up  a  string 
of  familiar  words  all  containing  the  same  root  hafz, 
which  signifies  "guarding"  or  "taking  care  of,"  such  as 
hafiz,  a  protector,  muhafiz,  a  custodian,  as  in  the  word 
muhafiz  daftar,  a  head  record-keeper ;  or  again,  hifasat, 
custody,  as  bahifazat  polls,  in  custody  of  the  police ;  or 
again,  daim-ul-hafz,  imprisonment  for  life,  and  other 
similar  expressions. 

All  words  from  this  root  suggest  the  idea  of  "guard- 
ing," and  therefore  the  name  Haphzibah  at  once  speaks 
its  own  meaning.  It  is  "one  who  is  guarded,"  a  "pro- 
tected one."  And  answering  to  this  there  must  be  some 
power  which  guards,  and  the  name  of  this  power  is 
given  in  Hosea  ii,  16,  where  it  is  called  "Ishi."  "And 
it  shall  be  at  that  day,  saith  the  Lord,  that  thou  shalt 
call  me  Ishi;  and  thou  shalt  call  me  no  more  Baali." 

197 


198       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

"Baali"  means  "lord,"  "Ishi"  means  "husband,"  and 
between  the  two  there  is  a  whole  world  of  distinction. 

To  call  the  Great  Power  "Baali"  is  to  live  in  one 
world,  and  to  call  it  "Ishi"  is  to  live  in  another.  The 
world  that  is  ruled  over  by  Baali  is  a  world  of  "mis- 
erable worms  of  the  dust"  and  such  crawling  creatures ; 
but  the  world  that  is  warmed  and  lightened  by  "Ishi" 
is  one  in  which  men  and  women  walk  upright,  conscious 
of  their  own  divine  nature,  instead  of  dodging  about  to 
escape  being  crushed  under  the  feet  of  Moloch  as  he 
strides  through  his  dominions.  If  the  name  Baali 
did  not  suggest  a  wrong  idea  there  would  be  no  need 
to  change  it  for  another,  and  the  change  of  name  there- 
fore indicates  the  opening  of  the  mind  to  a  larger 
and  sounder  conception  of  the  true  nature  of  the  Ruling 
Principle  of  the  universe.  It  is  no  imperious  autocrat, 
the  very  apotheosis  of  self-glorification,  ill-natured  and 
spiteful  if  its  childish  vanity  be  not  gratified  by  hear- 
ing its  own  praises  formally  proclaimed,  often  from 
lips  opened  only  by  fear;  nor  is  it  an  almighty  ex- 
tortioner desiring  to  deprive  us  of  what  we  value  most, 
either  to  satisfy  its  greed  or  to  demonstrate  its  sov- 
ereignty. This  is  the  image  which  men  make  of  God 
and  then  bow  terrified  before  it,  offering  a  worship 
which  is  the  worship  of  Baal,  and  making  life  blank 
because  all  the  livingness  has  'been  wiped  out  of  it. 

Ishi  is  the  embodiment  of  the  very  opposite  concep- 
tion, a  wise  and  affectionate  husband,  instead  of  a  task- 
master exploiting  his  slaves.  In  its  true  aspect  the  re- 


Hephzibah  199 

lation  of  husband  and  wife  is  entirely  devoid  of  any 
question  of  relative  superiority  or  inferiority.  As  well 
ask  whether  the  front  wheel  or  the  back  wheel  of 
your  bicycle  is  the  more  important.  The  two  make  a 
single  whole,  in  which  the  functions  of  both  parts  are 
reciprocal  and  equally  necessary ;  yet  for  this  very  rea- 
son these  functions  cannot  be  identical. 

In  a  well-ordered  home,  where  husband  and  wife  are 
united  by  mutual  love  and  respect,  we  see  that  the  man's 
function  is  to  enter  into  the  larger  world  and  to  pro- 
vide the  wife  with  all  that  is  needed  for  the  mainte- 
nance and  comfort  of  the  home,  while  the  function  of 
the  woman  is  to  be  the  distributor  of  what  her  husband 
provides,  in  doing  which  she  follows  her  own  discre- 
tion ;  and  a  sensible  man,  knowing  that  he  can  trust  a 
sensible  wife,  does  not  want  to  poke  his  finger  into 
every  pie.  Thus  all  things  run  harmoniously — the 
woman  relieved  of  responsibilities  which  are  not 
naturally  hers,  and  the  man  relieved  of  responsibilities 
which  are  not  naturally  his.  But  let  any  perplexity 
or  danger  arise,  and  the  woman  knows  that  from  her 
husband  she  will  receive  all  the  guidance  and  protec- 
tion that  the  occasion  may  require,  he  being  the  wise 
and  strong  man  that  we  have  supposed  him,  and  having 
this  assurance  she  is  able  to  pursue  the  avocations  of 
her  own  sphere  undisturbed  by  any  fears  or  anxieties. 

It  is  this  relation  of  protection  and  guidance  that 
is  implied  by  the  word  Hephzibah.  It  is  the  name  of 
those  who  realise  their  identity  with  the  all-ordering 


2OO       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

Divine  Spirit.  He  who  realises  this  unity  with  the 
Spirit  finds  himself  both  guided  and  guarded.  And 
here  we  touch  the  fringe  of  a  deep  natural  mystery, 
which  formed  the  basis  of  all  that  was  most  valuable  in 
the  higher  mysteries  of  the  ancients,  and  the  substance 
of  which  we  must  realise  if  we  are  to  make  any  prog- 
ress in  the  future,  whatever  form  we  may  adopt  to 
convey  the  idea  to  ourselves  or  others.  It  is  the  rela- 
tion of  the  individual  mind  to  the  Universal  Mind,  the 
combination  of  unity  with  independence  which,  though 
quite  clear  when  we  know  it  by  personal  experience,  is 
almost  inexpressible  in  words,  but  which  is  frequently 
represented  in  the  Bible  under  the  figure  of  the  mar- 
riage relations. 

It  is  a  basic  principle,  and  in  various  modes  pervades 
all  Nature,  and  has  been  symbolised  in  every  religion 
the  world  has  known;  and  in  proportion  as  the  indi- 
vidual realises  this  relation  he  will  find  that  he  is  able 
to  use  the  Universal  Mind,  while  at  the  same  time  he  is 
guided  and  guarded  by  it.  For  think  what  it  would  be 
to  wield  the  power  of  the  Universal  Mind  without 
having  its  guidance.  It  would  be  the  old  story  of 
Phaeton  trying  to  drive  the  chariot  of  the  Sun,  which 
ended  in  his  own  destruction ;  and  limitless  power  with- 
out corresponding  guidance  would  be  the  most  terrible 
curse  that  any  one  could  bring  upon  his  head. 

The  relation  between  the  individual  mind  and  the 
Universal  Mind,  as  portrayed  in  the  reciprocally  con- 
nected names  of  Hephzibah  and  Ishi,  must  never  be  lost 


Hephzibah  201 

sight  of;  for  the  Great  Guiding  Mind,  immeasurably 
as  it  transcends  our  intellectual  consciousness,  is  not 
another  than  ourselves.  It  is  The  One  Self  which  is 
the  foundation  of  all  the  individual  selves,  and  which 
is,  therefore,  in  all  its  limitlessness,  as  entirely  one  with 
each  individual  as  though  no  other  being  existed. 
Therefore  we  do  not  have  to  go  out  of  ourselves  to 
find  it,  for  it  is  the  expansion  to  infinity  of  all  that  we 
truly  are,  having,  indeed,  no  place  for  those  negative 
forms  of  evil  with  which  we  people  a  world  of  illusion, 
for  it  is  the  very  Light  itself,  and  in  it  all  illusion  is 
dispelled;  but  it  is  the  expansion  to  infinity  of  all  in 
us  that  is  Affirmative,  all  that  is  really  living. 

Therefore,  in  looking  for  its  guiding  and  guarding 
we  are  relying  upon  no  borrowed  power  from  without, 
held  at  the  caprice  and  option  of  another,  but  upon  the 
supreme  fact  of  our  own  nature,  which  we  can  use  in 
what  direction  we  will  with  perfect  freedom,  knowing 
no  limitation  save  the  obligation  not  to  do  violence  to 
our  own  purest  and  highest  feelings.  And  this  relation 
is  entirely  natural.  We  must  steer  the  happy  mean  be- 
tween imploring  and  ignoring.  A  natural  law  does 
not  need  to  be  entreated  before  it  will  work;  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  we  cannot  make  use  of  it  while  ignoring 
its  existence. 

What  we  have  to  do,  therefore,  is  to  take  the  work- 
ing of  the  law  for  granted,  and  make  use  of  it  accord- 
ingly; and  since  that  is  the  law  of  Mind,  and  Mind  is 
Personality,  this  Power,  which  is  at  once  ourselves  and 


2O2       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

above  ourselves,  may  be  treated  as  a  Person  and  may 
be  spoken  with,  and  its  replies  received  by  the  inner 
ear  of  the  heart.  Any  scheme  of  philosophy  that  does 
not  result  in  this  personal  intercourse  with  the  Divine 
Mind  falls  short  of  the  mark.  It  may  be  right  so  far  as 
it  goes,  but  it  does  not  go  far  enough,  and  fails  to  con- 
nect us  with  our  vital  centre.  Names  are  of  small  im- 
portance so  long  as  the  intercourse  is  real.  The  Su- 
preme Mind  with  which  we  converse  is  only  to  be  met 
in  the  profoundest  depths  of  our  own  being,  and,  as 
Tennyson  says,  is  more  perfectly  ourselves  than  our 
own  hands  and  feet.  It  is  our  natural  Base;  and 
realising  this  we  shall  find  ourselves  to  be  in  very  truth 
"guarded  ones,"  guided  by  the  Spirit  in  all  things, 
nothing  too  great  and  nothing  too  trivial  to  come 
within  the  great  Law  of  our  being. 

There  is  another  aspect  of  the  Spirit  in  which  it  is 
seen  as  a  Power  to  be  used;  and  the  full  flow  of  life 
is  in  the  constant  alternation  between  this  aspect  and 
the  one  we  have  been  considering,  but  always  we  are 
linked  with  the  Universal  Mind  as  the  flower  lives  by 
reason  of  its  root.  The  connection  itself  is  intrinsic, 
and  can  never  be  severed;  but  it  must  be  consciously 
realised  before  it  can  be  consciously  used.  All  our 
development  consists  in  the  increasing  consciousness  of 
this  connection,  which  enables  us  to  apply  the  higher 
power  to  whatever  purpose  we  may  have  in  hand,  not 
merely  in  the  hope  that  it  may  respond,  but  with  the 
-certain  knowledge  that  by  the  law  of  its  own  nature  it 


Hephzibah  203 

is  bound  to  do  so,  and  likewise  with  the  knowledge  that 
by  the  same  law  it  is  bound  also  to  guide  us  to  the 
selection  of  right  objects  and  right  methods. 

Experience  will  teach  us  to  detect  the  warning  move- 
ment of  the  inner  Guide.  A  deepseated  sense  of  dis- 
satisfaction, an  indescribable  feeling  that  somehow 
everything  is  not  right,  are  the  indications  to  which 
we  do  well  to  pay  heed ;  for  we  are  "guarded  ones,"  and 
these  interior  monitions  are  the  working  of  that  inner- 
most principle  of  our  own  being  which  is  the  immediate 
outflowing  of  the  Great  Universal  Life  into  indi- 
viduality. But,  paying  heed  to  this,  we  shall  find  our- 
selves guarded,  not  as  prisoners,  but  as  a  loved  and  hon- 
oured wife,  whose  freedom  is  assured  by  a  protection 
which  will  allow  no  harm  to  assail  her;  we  shall  find 
that  the  Law  of  our  nature  is  Liberty,  and  that  nothing 
but  our  own  want  of  understanding  can  shut  us  out 
from  it. 


XXII 
MIND  AND  HAND 

I  HAVE  before  me  a  curious  piece  of  ancient  Egyptian 
symbolism.  It  represents  the  sun  sending  down  to  the 
earth  innumerable  rays,  with  the  peculiarity  that  each 
ray  terminates  in  a  hand.  This  method  of  represent- 
ing the  sun  is  so  unusual  that  it  suggests  the  presence  in 
the  designer's  mind  of  some  idea  rather  different  from 
those  generally  associated  with  the  sun  as  a  spiritual 
emblem;  and,  if  I  interpret  the  symbol  rightly,  it  sets 
forth  the  truth,  not  only  of  the  Divine  Being  as  the 
Great  Source  of  all  Life  and  of  all  Illumination,  but 
also  the  correlative  truth  of  our  individual  relation  to 
that  centre.  Each  ray  is  terminated  by  a  hand,  and  a 
hand  is  the  emblem  of  active  working;  and  I  think 
it  would  be  difficult  to  give  a  better  symbolical  repre- 
sentation of  innumerable  individualities,  each  working 
separately,  yet  all  deriving  their  activity  from  a  com- 
mon source.  The  hand  is  at  work  upon  the  earth,  and 
the  sun,  from  which  it  is  a  ray,  is  shining  in  the 
heavens ;  but  the  connecting  line  shows  whence  all  the 
strength  and  skill  of  the  hand  are  derived. 

If  we  look  at  the  microcosm  of  our  own  person  we 
204 


Mind  and  Hand  205 

find  this  principle  exactly  reproduced.  Our  hand  is  the 
instrument  by  which  all  our  work  is  done — literary, 
artistic,  mechanical,  or  household — but  we  know  that 
all  this  work  is  really  the  work  of  the  mind,  the  will- 
power at  the  centre  of  our  system,  which  first  deter- 
mines what  is  to  be  done,  and  then  sets  the  hand  to 
work  to  do  it;  and  in  the  doing  of  it  the  mind  and 
hand  become  one,  so  that  the  hand  is  none  other  than 
the  mind  working.  Now,  transferring  this  analogy  to 
the  microcosm,  we  see  that  we  each  stand  in  the  same 
relation  to  the  Universal  Mind  that  our  hand  does  to 
our  individual  mind — at  least,  that  is  our  normal  re- 
lation; and  we  shall  never  put  forth  our  full  strength 
except  from  this  standpoint. 

We  rightly  realise  our  will  as  the  centre  of  our  in- 
dividuality, but  we  should  do  better  to  picture  our  in- 
dividuality as  an  ellipse  rather  than  a  circle,  a  figure 
having  two  "conjugate  foci,"  two  equilibriated  centres 
of  revolution  rather  than  a  single  one,  one  of  which  is 
the  will-power  or  faculty  of  doing,  and  the  other  the 
consciousness  or  perception  of  being.  If  we  realise 
only  one  of  these  two  centres  we  shall  lose  both  mental 
and  moral  balance.  If  we  lose  sight  of  that  centre 
which  is  our  personal  will,  we  shall  become  flabby  vi- 
sionaries without  any  backbone;  and  if,  in  our  anxiety 
to  develop  backbone,  we  lost  sight  of  the  other  centre, 
we  shall  find  that  we  have  lost  that  which  corresponds 
to  the  lungs  and  heart  in  the  physical  body,  and  that  our 
backbone,  however  perfectly  developed,  is  rapidly  dry- 


206       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

ing  up  for  want  of  those  functions  which  minister 
vitality  to  the  whole  system,  and  is  only  fit  to  be  hung 
up  in  a  museum  to  show  what  a  rigid,  lifeless  thing  the 
strongest  vertebral  column  becomes  when  separated 
from  the  organisation  by  which  alone  it  can  receive 
nourishment.  We  must  realise  the  one  focus  of  our  in- 
dividuality as  clearly  as  the  other,  and  bring  both  into 
equal  balance,  if  we  would  develop  all  our  powers  and 
rise  to  that  perfection  of  Life  which  has  no  limits  to  its 
glorious  possibilities. 

Keeping  the  ancient  Egyptian  symbol  before  used, 
and  considering  ourselves  as  the  hand,  we  find  that  we 
derive  all  our  power  from  an  infinite  centre;  and  be- 
cause it  is  infinite  we  need  never  fear  that  we  shall  fail 
to  draw  to  ourselves  all  that  we  require  for  our  work, 
whether  it  be  the  intelligence  to  lay  hold  of  the  proper 
tool,  or  the  strength  to  use  it.  And,  moreover,  we  learn 
from  the  symbol  that  this  central  power  is  generic. 
This  is  a  most  important  truth.  It  is  the  centre  from 
which  all  the  hands  proceed,  and  is  as  fully  open  to  any 
one  hand  as  to  any  other.  Each  hand  is  doing  its  sepa- 
rate work,  and  the  whole  of  the  central  energy  is  at  its 
disposal  for  its  own  specific  purpose.  The  work  of  the 
central  energy,  as  such,  is  to  supply  vitality  to  the 
hands,  and  it  is  they  that  differentiate  this  universal 
power  into  all  the  varied  forms  of  application  which 
their  different  aptitudes  and  opportunities  suggest. 
We,  as  the  hands,  live  and  work  because  the  Central 
Mind  lives  and  works  in  us.  We  are  one  with  it,  and  it 


Mind  and  Hand  207 

is  one  with  us;  and  so  long  as  we  keep  this  primal 
truth  before  us,  we  realise  ourselves  as  beings  of  un- 
limited goodness  and  intelligence  and  power,  and  we 
work  in  the  fulness  of  strength  and  confidence  accord- 
ingly; but  if  we  lose  sight  of  this  truth,  we  shall  find 
that  the  strongest  will  must  get  exhausted  at  last  in 
the  unequal  struggle  of  the  individual  against  the  uni- 
verse. 

For  if  we  do  not  recognise  the  Central  Mind  as  the 
source  of  our  vitality,  we  are  literally  "fighting  for  our 
own  hand,"  and  all  the  other  hands  are  against  us,  for 
we  have  lost  the  principle  of  connection  with  them. 
This  is  what  must  infallibly  happen  if  we  rely  on  noth- 
ing but  our  individual  will-power.  But  if  we  realise 
that  the  will  is  the  power  by  which  we  give  out,  and 
that  every  giving  out  implies  a  corresponding  taking 
in,  then  we  shall  find  in  the  boundless  ocean  of  central 
living  Spirit  the  source  from  which  we  can  go  on  tak- 
ing in  ad  infinitum,  and  which  thus  enables  us  to  give 
out  to  any  extent  we  please.  But  for  wise  and  effective 
giving  out  a  strong  and  enlightened  will  is  an  absolute 
necessity,  and  therefore  we  do  well  to  cultivate  the  will, 
or  the  active  side  of  our  nature.  But  we  must  equally 
cultivate  the  receptive  side  also ;  and  when  we  do  this 
rightly  by  seeing  in  the  Infinite  Mind  the  one  source  of 
supply,  our  will-power  becomes  intensified  by  the 
knowledge  that  the  whole  power  of  the  Infinite  is 
present  to  back  it  up ;  and  with  this  continual  sense  of 
Infinite  Power  behind  us  we  can  go  calmly  and  steadily 


2o8       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

to  the  accomplishment  of  any  purpose,  however  diffi- 
cult, without  straining  or  effort,  knowing  that  it  shall 
be  achieved,  not  by  the  hand  only,  but  by  the  invincible 
Mind  that  works  through  it.  "Not  by  might,  nor  by 
power,  but  by  My  Spirit,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts." 
1902. 


XXIII 
THE  CENTRAL  CONTROL 

IN  contemplating  the  relations  between  body,  soul,  and 
spirit,  between  Universal  Mind  and  individual  mind, 
the  methodised  study  of  which  constitutes  Mental 
Science,  we  must  never  forget  that  these  relations  indi- 
cate, not  the  separateness,  but  the  unity  of  these  prin- 
ciples. We  must  learn  not  to  attribute  one  part  of  our 
action  to  one  part  of  our  being,  and  another  to  another. 
Neither  the  action  nor  the  functions  are  split  up  into 
separate  parts.  The  action  is  a  whole,  and  the  being 
that  does  it  is  a  whole,  and  in  the  healthy  organism 
the  reciprocal  movements  of  the  principles  are  so  har- 
monious as  never  to  suggest  any  feeling  than  that  of  a 
perfectly  whole  and  undivided  self.  If  there  is  any 
other  feeling  we  may  be  sure  that  there  is  abnormal 
action  somewhere,  and  we  should  set  ourselves  to  dis- 
cover and  remove  the  cause  of  it.  The  reason  for  this 
is  that  in  any  perfect  organism  there  cannot  be  more 
than  one  centre  of  control. 

A  rivalry  of  controlling  principles  would  be  the  de- 
struction of  the  organic  wholeness ;  for  either  the  ele- 
ments would  separate  and  group  themselves  round  one 
or  other  of  the  centres,  according  to  their  respective 
affinities,  and  thus  form  two  distinctive  individualities, 

209 


2io       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

or  else  they  would  be  reduced  to  a  condition  of  merely 
chaotic  confusion;  in  either  case  the  original  organism 
would  cease  to  exist.  Seen  in  this  light,  therefore,  it  is 
a  self-evident  truth  that,  if  we  are  to  retain  our  in- 
dividuality; in  other  words,  if  we  are  to  continue  to 
exist,  it  can  be  only  by  retaining  our  hold  upon  the 
central  controlling  principle  in  ourselves;  and  if  this 
be  the  charter  of  our  being,  it  follows  that  all  our  future 
development  depends  on  our  recognising  and  accepting 
this  central  controlling  principle.  To  this  end,  there- 
fore, all  our  endeavours  should  be  directed ;  for  other- 
wise all  our  studies  in  Mental  Science  will  only  lead  us 
into  a  confused  labyrinth  of  principles  and  counter- 
principles,  which  will  be  considerably  worse  than  the 
state  of  ignorant  simplicity  from  which  we  started. 

This  central  controlling  principle  is  the  Will,  and 
we  must  never  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  all  the  other 
principles  about  which  we  have  learnt  in  our  studies 
exist  only  as  its  instruments.  The  Will  is  the  true  self, 
of  which  they  are  all  functions,  and  all  our  progress 
consists  of  our  increased  recognition  of  the  fact.  It  is 
the  Will  that  says  "I  AM" ;  and  therefore,  however  ex- 
alted, or  even  in  their  higher  developments  apparently 
miraculous,  our  powers  may  be,  they  are  all  subject  to 
the  central  controlling  power  of  the  Will.  When  the 
enlightened  Will  shall  have  learnt  to  identify  itself  per- 
fectly with  the  limitless  powers  of  knowledge,  judg- 
ment, and  creative  thought  which  are  at  its  disposal, 
then  the  individual  will  have  attained  to  perfect  whole- 


The  Central  Control  21 1 

ness,  and  all  limitations  will  have  passed  away  for  ever. 

And  nothing  short  of  this  consciousness  of  Perfect 
Wholeness  can  satisfy  us.  Everything  that  falls  short 
of  it  is  in  that  degree  an  embodiment  of  the  principle 
of  Death,  that  great  enemy  against  which  the  principle 
of  Life  must  continue  to  wage  unceasing  war,  in  what- 
ever form  or  measure  it  may  show  itself,  until  "death  is 
swallowed  up  in  victory."  There  can  be  no  compro- 
mise. Either  we  are  affirming  Life  as  a  principle,  or 
we  are  denying  it,  no  matter  on  how  great  or  how 
small  a  scale;  and  the  criterion  by  which  to  determine 
our  attitude  is  our  realisation  of  our  own  Wholeness. 
Death  is  the  principle  of  disintegration ;  and  whenever 
we  admit  the  power  of  any  portion  of  our  organism, 
whether  spiritual  or  bodily,  to  induce  any  condition 
independently  of  the  intention  of  the  Will,  we  admit 
that  the  force  of  disintegration  is  superior  to  the  con- 
trolling centre  in  ourselves,  and  we  conceive  of  our- 
selves as  held  in  bondage  by  an  adversary,  from  which 
bondage  the  only  way  of  release  is  by  the  attainment 
of  a  truer  way  of  thinking. 

And  the  reason  is  that,  either  through  ignorance  or 
carelessness,  we  have  surrendered  our  position  of  con- 
trol over  the  system  as  a  whole,  and  have  lost  the  ele- 
ment of  Purpose,  around  which  the  consciousness  of 
individuality  must  always  centre.  Every  state  of  our 
consciousness,  whether  active  or  passive,  should  be  the 
result  of  a  distinct  purpose  adopted  by  our  own  free 
will;  for  the  passive  states  should  be  quite  as  much 


212       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

under  the  control  of  the  Will  as  the  active.  It  is  the 
lack  of  purpose  that  deprives  us  of  power.  The  higher 
and  more  clearly  defined  our  purpose,  the  greater  stim- 
ulus we  have  for  realising  our  control  over  all  our 
faculties  for  its  attainment;  and  since  the  grandest  of 
all  purposes  is  the  strengthening  and  ennobling  of  Life, 
in  proportion  as  we  make  this  our  aim  we  shall  find 
ourselves  in  union  with  the  Supreme  Universal  Mind, 
acting  each  in  our  individual  sphere  for  the  furtherance 
of  the  same  purpose  which  animates  the  ruling  principle 
of  the  Great  Whole,  and,  as  a  consequence,  shall  find 
that  its  intelligence  and  powers  are  at  our  disposal. 

But  in  all  this  there  must  be  no  strain.  The  true 
exercise  of  the  Will  is  not  an  exercise  of  unnatural 
force.  It  is  simply  the  leading  of  our  powers  into  their 
natural  channels  by  intelligently  recognising  the  di- 
rection in  which  those  channels  go.  However  various 
in  detail,  they  have  one  clearly  defined  common  ten- 
dency towards  the  increasing  of  Life — whether  in  our- 
selves or  in  others — and  if  we  keep  this  steadily  in 
view,  all  our  powers,  whether  interior  or  exterior, 
will  be  found  to  work  so  harmoniously  together  that 
there  will  be  no  sense  of  independent  action  on  the  part 
of  any  one  of  them.  The  distinctions  drawn  for  pur- 
poses of  study  will  be  laid  aside,  and  the  Self  in  us 
will  be  'found  to  be  the  realisation  of  a  grand  ideal 
being,  at  once  individual  and  universal,  consciously  free 
in  its  individual  wholeness  and  in  its  joyous  participa- 
tion in  the  Life  of  the  Universal  Whole. 


XXIV 
WHAT  Is  HIGHER  THOUGHT? 

Resolution  passed  October,  1902,  by  the  Kensington  Higher 
Thought  Centre. 

"That  the  Centre  stands  for  the  definite  teaching  of 
absolute  Oneness  of  Creator  and  Creation — Cause  and 
Effect — and  that  nothing  which  tnay  contradict  or  be  in 
opposition  to  the  above  principles  be  admitted  to  the 
'Higher  Thought'  Centre  Platform. 

"By  Oneness  of  Cause  and  Effect  is  meant,  that  Effect 
(man)  does  consist  only  of  what  Cause  is;  but  a  part 
(individual  personality)  is  not  therefore  co-extensive  with 
the  whole." 

THIS  Resolution  is  of  the  greatest  importance.  Once 
admit  that  there  is  any  Power  outside  yourself,  however 
beneficent  you  may  conceive  it  to  be,  and  you  have 
sown  the  seed  which  must  sooner  or  later  bear  the  fruit 
of  "Fear"  which  is  the  entire  ruin  of  Life,  Love  and 
Liberty.  There  is  no  via,  media.  Say  we  are  only  reflec- 
tions, however  accurate,  of  The  Life,  and  in  the  ad- 
mission we  have  given  away  our  Birthright.  However 
small  or  plausible  may  be  the  germ  of  thought  which 
admits  that  we  are  anything  less  in  principle  than  The 

213 


214       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

Life  Itself,  it  must  spring  up  to  the  ultimate  ruin  of  the 
Life-Principle  itself.  We  are  It  itself.  The  difference 
is  only  that  between  the  generic  and  the  specific  of  the 
same  thing.  We  must  contend  earnestly,  both  within 
ourselves  and  outwardly,  for  the  one  great  foundation 
and  never,  now  on  to  all  eternity,  admit  for  a  single 
instant  any  thought  which  is  opposed  to  this,  the  Basic 
Truth  of  Being. 

The  leading  ideas  connected  with  Higher  Thought 
are  (I)  That  Man  controls  circumstances,  instead  of 
being  controlled  by  them,  and  (II)  as  a  consequence  of 
the  foregoing,  that  whatever  teaches  us  to  rely  on 
power  borrowed  from  a  source  outside  ourselves  is  no/- 
Higher Thought ;  and  that  whatever  explains  to  us  the 
Infinite  source  of  our  own  inherent  power  and  the  con- 
sequent limitless  nature  of  that  power  is  Higher 
Thought.  This  avoids  the  use  of  terms  which  may 
only  puzzle  those  not  accustomed  to  abstract  phrase- 
ology, and  is  substantially  the  same  as  the  resolution 
of  October,  1902. 


XXV 

FRAGMENTS 

1.  God  is  Love. 

Man,  having  the  understanding  of  God,  speaks  the 
Word  of  Power. 

2.  Man  gives  utterance  to  God. 

3.  The  Father  is  Equilibrium. 

The  Son  is  Concentration  of  the  same  Spirit. 
The  Spirit  is  Projection. 

The  Tri-une  Relation — always  consists  of  these 
Three : 

(I)  The  Potential— (II)  The  Ideal— (III)  The 
Concrete. 

(I)  The  Potential  is  Life  in  its  most  highly  abstract 
mode  not  yet  brought  into  Form  even  as  Thought.    Not 
particularised  in  any  way. 

(II)  The  Ideal  is  the  particularising  of  the  Poten- 
tial into  a  certain  Formulated  Thought. 

(III)  The  Concrete  is  the  Manifestation  of  the  For- 
mulated Thought  in  Visible  Form. 

What  everybody  wants  is  to  become  more  alive — as 
Jesus  said,  "I  am  come  that  they  might  have  Life 
and  might  have  it  more  abundantly" — and  it  is  only 

215 


2 1 6       The  Hidden  Power  and  Other  Essays 

on  the  basis  of  realising  ourselves  as  a  perfect  unity 
throughout,  not  made  up  of  opposing  parts,  and  that 
unity  Spirit,  that  we  can  realise  in  ourselves  the  Liinng- 
ness  which  Spirit  is,  and  which  we  as  Spirit  ought  to  be. 

HENCE  PERFECT  DEMONSTRATION. 

"The  Truth  shall  make  you  Free" 

Life        : 

Love       :  =•  The  Truth 

Liberty   : 

The  Ultimate  Truth  will  always  be  found  to  consist 
of  these  three,  and  anything  that  is  contrary  to  them 
is  contrary  to  Fundamental  Truth. 

WORSHIP 

Worship  consists  in  the  recognition  of  the  Personal 
Nature  of  Holy  Spirit,  and  in  the  Continual  Alternation 
(Pulsation)  between  the  two  positions  of  "I  am  the 
Person  that  Thou  art,"  and  "Thou  art  the  Person  that 
I  am."  The  Two  Personalities  are  One. 


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.L,  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
.ty  of  California,  San  Diego 

DATE  DUE 


041975 


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